


Zanna Don't

by Autumn_Maple_Tree



Series: The Ancestor [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-16 12:05:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 53,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7267450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumn_Maple_Tree/pseuds/Autumn_Maple_Tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is determined to confront his visions head on, even if that means going back to the Cage. Determined to find answers, he heads out alone. </p><p>Gabriel is angry, about a lot of things, and makes more than one bad decision. </p><p>Gabriel's bad decisions ultimately set his brother back in the healing process. </p><p>Olle is just trying to figure out how to bring them all together, but even the Universe has a hard time knowing what to do sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting as I go and, honestly, after a rough few weeks, I'm starting to rethink where this is going and may end up taking down chapters 3, 4, & 5 for rewrites. If they disappear, I'll try to get them and the rest of this back up ASAP.

Sam was shocked, to say the least, to find Sully in their kitchen. He knew Dean was reluctant to have anything to do with him, but the creature had been there for Sam when he needed him; this was Sam's chance to return the favor. During the drive to Wisconsin, Sam managed to get Sully to give them the whole story of what was happening. It looked like someone had murdered Sully's friend Sparkle while he was waiting for the return of his human child; that was last night and Sully made his way to the Bunker as soon as he found Sparkle's body. Apparently, not only was it unheard of for Zanna to be killed, but it was next to impossible to do so; Sully had no idea what could have done such a thing, what would have done such a thing, to a creature that did no harm. With Sully's insistence, after much grousing from Dean, the Zanna used whatever magic he possessed to move them from the truck stop in Omaha, where they stopped for gas, to Menomonie, a few miles from Sparkle's crime scene. After talking with Sully, they decided on a quick change, Sam remembering Olle's warning, and pity, for the child who just lost their best friend. 

Not only was Dean uncomfortable with pretexting as a child psychologist, he was bad at it. Sully trying to reign him, and his idea of group showers, back did not stop the uncomfortable look on Maddie's Mom's face. Sully let the men return to their motel while he cleaned up the crime scene. They were all supposed to meet at the little girl, Zoe's, house to check on Nicky the mermaid. 

“Hey Sam,” Dean asked as they were changing into street clothes, “you think Sully may have something to do with this?”

“What?” he asks jerking around to look, hard, at his brother. “Why would he come get me, Dean, if he had something to do with this? Why would he send hunters to search for a killer no one would think was real, if he were the killer?” Sam shook his head, turning away from his brother to pull his jeans on. 

Dean shrugged, “I know you're right, Sam, but why is someone killing Sully's friends? There could be a thousands, hundreds of thousands, of Zanna out there and this person zeros in on Sully's friends?”

“We need more information,” Sam says. 

“Yeah, like what could even kill one of these things, for starters,” Dean says as they head for Baby. 

“I'll call Olle,” Sam says sliding into the car. “I'll ask him what he can dig up.” Dean nods, pulling away from the motel.

**

Hours after Olle started awake to find Gabriel in his room, hours after he pulled the reluctant, exhausted archangel down into bed with him, he woke to find the small body still comfortably nestled in his arms. He was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid to think because he knew he would somehow wake the archangel and lose the perfect feeling of having him in his arms again. He tried, quietly, to will himself back to sleep, but he was too well rested. He lay there happily soaking up the small noises Gabriel made in his sleep, the feel of his impossibly strong body, the smell of thunderstorms and salted-caramel chasing themselves around in Olle's brain; reminding him of all the times he has ever laid hands on the archangel. There is a bittersweet sadness to it all, because he knows they have decided, rightfully, to never go back to how they were before. 

Olle's revelry is interrupted by the sound of his phone and he is forced to roll partially away from the angel to grab the device off the beside table. “Hey Sam,” he says quietly, but it is too late and Gabriel is pulling out of his broken embrace to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“Olle, hey man,” the hunter says, “can you do me a favor?”

“Sure Sam,” Olle says with a sigh, rolling away from Gabriel to sit on the opposite side of the bed. 

“Zanna, I need you to look up everything you can find about them for me. Specifically, though, anything about how to kill them, and who would want to.”

“Well,” Olle says through a yawn, “you mentioning it before you left got me curious.”

“Have you slept?” Sam asks suddenly. “You sound exhausted, did I wake you?”

“I'm fine Sam,” Olle says quickly. “Zanna, I can tell you some right now, but I'll keep looking.” At the word Zanna, Gabriel turned his attention to the conversation. “They are what you would consider fairies. They can appear human and are usually, at least vaguely, humanoid, invisible, immortal, each having unique magickal qualities specific to their family or subspecies.” Olle shakes his head, running his hand through his hair, “I got no clue who would want to kill them though, for fucks sake, they are gentle, peace-loveing, creatures that have never done harm to anyone. There are spells, hard to do unless you got a ton of experience and natural talent, that will let you see them, even if they don't want you to. Killing them, I suppose, like anything, there is something out there that would do it.” 

“Sparkle was killed with some sort of blade,” Sam says. 

Olle hears Gabriel gasp, “Blade,” before he disappears suddenly and the big man curses to himself. 

“I'll find you something,” Olle says.

“Thanks man,” Sam says. 

“Gabe,” Olle says loudly to the room once he hangs up on Sam. “What the fuck? Where'd ya go?” The angel does not answer, so Olle heads for the shower before coffee and research. 

When Olle makes his way from the shower to the coffee pot, he remembers Cas is watching Metatron and he groans. Filling his mug, he makes for the infirmary. Cas is sitting, still and quiet as stone, staring at Metatron who is doing his damnedest to copy his former brother. Olle pulls the angel away and, in the hallway, asks, “Do you want to go do some research for Sam while I sit with him?”

“Anything,” the angel says seriously, “to break up the monotony of just staring at him.” 

Olle laughs, “Not as fun now that you realize how much there is out there to occupy your mind with, is it?” The angel shakes his head. Olle claps him on the back, “Metatron will be well enough, soon, to move back to his room and, then, he won't need constant monitoring. Too many things, though, he can get hold of in here to hurt himself with.” 

Olle sets up the angel, at a table in the library, with any and all information he can find about Zanna. Once Cas is set on a few hours of reading, Olle heads back to the infirmary with more coffee and enough scrambled eggs and toast for two. When Metatron refuses to eat, Olle just shakes his head and does not let it go to waste. Once the plates are empty, however, he looks over at the man, “You do know you haven't eaten in three days, right? If you don't start to eat, Metatron, I'll give you a feeding tube. How do you like that idea? I'll run a plastic tube up your nose and down your throat, into your stomach; you'll get protein shakes blended full of vitamins five times a day and that's it. I refuse to let you kill yourself, just because you don't like how your life turned out.” 

The small man huffs, turning his head away, “Plenty of people have done it. I'm sure plenty are doing it as we speak.”

“Those people,” Olle says desperately, sitting down beside the man, “need people around them who'll help them. Who'll stop them. Even knowing what happens when you die, Metatron, shouldn't make you run for the door!”

“How do you know what it's like?” he asks. “You're human. You're huge and attractive and well trained and you don't know what it is like to be something so much stronger, so much better! You don't know what it's like to hate what you see when you look at a body you're trapped in! A body you hate because it isn't you!”

Olle laughs at that, meanly, “You have no idea what my life has been! You're just angry you're going to grow old and die. You're pissed off you gotta remember to eat and drink and suffer the indignities of going to the bathroom and getting sick and having to work for everything you have. That's how well all feel you idiot! And most of us don't get to know, for sure, there is a better place out there for us when it's all over.” Olle walks out of the infirmary, leaving the man, still restrained, to think about what he said. 

Back in the library, Olle slumps in a chair across form Cas and picks up a book. The angel gives him a long look, but does not comment. After about an hour, Cas looks up and says, “I've found nothing on anything that could kill a Zanna. What about the long sword? You said there were seven sets of weapons, you have one and we have one downstairs, that leaves five out there somewhere.”

“Sam said a blade,” Olle says laying down his book. “I don't know that they could tell a sword wound from any other blade. It is possible, I guess, but there has to be something more.” Olle knows there are witches out there who could enchant a weapon to kill a specific fairy; if that is the case, it could be any blade, any witch, or any person willing to work with a witch. 

When he postulates this to Cas the angel replies, “If it is just a regular person, though, what will they do?”

“That is up to them, Cas,” Olle says pulling out his phone. Sam does not pick up and, instead of leaving a voicemail, he sends Gabriel a text message asking him where he flew off to this morning. After a few minutes, when the archangel does not respond, Olle gets up and makes for the kitchen. “I'm gonna go grab some lunch,” he tells Cas; the angel just nods in response.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabriel looked down at his phone where it was laughing like Woody Wood Pecker, a text message from Olle, but he was busy following along with Sam and Dean as they helped Sully. Seeing what had been done to Sparkle was heart wrenching. Watching them find Nicky was hard as well. Watching Sully put Sam and the little girl, Zoe, in front of himself, in front of the grief Gabriel could feel washing through the Zanna, made him angry. Not at Sully, of course, but at whomever was doing this to these creatures. Like angels, the Zanna were immortal, and he had known them, millennia ago. Gabriel watches the brothers bury the mermaid, while Sully cleans up the pool and goes to find another Zanna to help Zoe with the loss of her imaginary friend. He can tell Sam has drifted away, lost in thought, and he does the same, watching as Dean digs. 

When Gabriel was driven into the fairy realms, he drifted. After a while, he began to make friends with the creatures whose age and connection to magick had helped them survive the sundering of Creation. The Zanna were among those who befriended him, showed him the subtlety of magick, as opposed to Grace, and he, in turn, showed them how to navigate between the dimensions without being summoned. He was the reason the Zanna returned and now he felt responsible for what was happening to them. 

Shaken from his thoughts by Dean's complaining, much like Sam, the archangel snaps and is waiting for the Winchesters at Weems'. When he sees the young woman stab the Zanna, he uses a subtle push of Grace to frighten her away while the mullet wearing imaginary friend drags himself into the barn. As Gabriel goes to follow Weems, intent on healing him, he hears the Impala and drifts back into invisibility, deciding to let them handle it. 

Watching Sam talk to Sully, Gabriel is curious what, exactly, Lucifer has been showing the young hunter. He knew his brother had reached out to Sam, almost accidentally, right after he was freed from Hell, but he had no idea he was still making routine visits to the hunter's psyche. Sully praising Sam as a hero and encouraging him to stay strong; while true and necessary and admirable, is also dangerous. There was simply no way he could guarantee Sam's safety into and out of Hell to discover the Cage and realize it is empty. At any rate, that plan completely disregards what will happen, what the brothers will assume, when they realize the Cage is empty and they find Michael, no he realizes, Adam's dead body. 

When Sam's phone goes off, Gabriel decides to go along with them, it was nice to see Sam having a bit of fun. Sully seemed to be enjoying the kid's enthusiasm as well, who knew hotwiring a minivan was this exciting? 

When Gabriel saw Dean tied to a pipe, he was instantly on guard. Watching the hunters, though, he realized they had become more than they were when he walked into that hotel ballroom so many years ago. They needed no help from him, though he was absolutely not going to let Sully offer himself up like a sacrifice to Reese; no matter what happened. Then, though, he watched Dean reach out to her and even take up for Sully, the 'monster' in this instance; that was something he never thought the oldest Winchester would do, defend a non-human creature. 

When Sully left with Reese and Sam and Dean were on their way back to their motel room, Gabriel appeared in Fletcher's bedroom, where Weems was sitting on a beanbag chair watching the boy sleep. “Hey man, killer air guitar,” the angel said startling the Zanna so that he fell off the chair with a groan.

“Geeze man,” the mullet wearing Zanna said, “are you my replacement?” Weems looked up at Gabriel then, though, and stared hard before slowly saying, “What are you? You're not Zanna.”

Gabriel smiled before putting his finger on the fairy's forehead, healing him, “I'm an angel.”

That one statement causes the Zanna to stand up quickly and say, “Whatever you're here for, you can't have him!” as he moves between the foot of Fletcher's bed and the archangel. 

Gabriel sighs and, flopping down on Weems' vacated chair he wonders aloud, “What have my brothers and sisters been doing since I was killed that causes you to think I would ever hurt the boy?”

“Who are you?” Weems wonders curiously, head tilted cunningly to the side. 

“Gabriel,” he sighs, “they called me Gabriel.” The angel snaps, using more of his Grace than he should, but it is for a good cause. The two appear, outside where Sparkle and Nicky are standing; Nicky on two legs since she is not currently wet. The mermaid launches herself into her boyfriend's arms and Sparkle does a full body check, running his hand last up the length of his no longer broken horn. “How's everyone doing? You guys okay?” the archangel wants to know. 

Nicky smiles, shaking her head vigorously before planting a fierce, closed mouth, kiss on Weems. Sparkle nods, “We're good man, thanks. Being dead kinda sucked.”

“I know, right,” the angel deadpans. 

“Where's Sully?” Weems asks then, arm still around Nicky like if he lets go she will be gone again. 

“He left with Reese,” Gabriel says. “The girl that gave you all the shank; she was Sully's last kid,” he waves his arms in a confused messy way, “It was a whole thing. Dean got through to her, though, and Sully thought it best to stay with her for a while.”

“But the girl is okay?” Nicky asks. 

“She will be, probably,” the angel says. “I always wondered how Zanna could care so much about their charges, about humans. Now,” he muses quietly, almost to himself, “it is nice to see.”

“Your problem,” Nicky says with an air of superiority, “is that angel's don't feel the ebb and flow of magick, of Creation, the way we do. You can't. You may see it but we feel it. It either makes you crazy or it makes you Zanna.”

Gabriel nods, understanding what the mermaid means. After all, he has felt the ebb and flow of Creation, been inside it, had it inside him, and it will, absolutely, make you crazy. “Well,” he says, drawing out the word, “I'm gonna jet. I just wanted to make sure the three of you were okay before I took off.”

“Wait!” Sparkle says reaching out to him. “Why did you bring us back? Where are you going?”

The archangel sighs, “I've seen enough killing of those that don't deserve it to last a trillion lifetimes. I couldn't let it happen again; not right in front of me.” Gabriel turns and starts walking away, toward the road in front of Fletcher's house, “You won't see me again.”


	3. Chapter 3

Olle is done putting up with Metatron; after the man's suicide attempt Olle felt sorry for him, knew where he was coming from, and wanted to help him, but his continued refusal to eat coupled with his non-stop complaining about all things human, are taking a tole on the big man's patience. Olle had finally asked Cas if he would be willing to heal the former Scribe of God enough for him to be returned to his room so he would not need constant supervision When the angel agreed, Olle wasted no time getting the man settled back behind his locks and wards. Mission accomplished, and without any word from Gabriel or the Winchesters, Olle decided to make his way down to the training area and lift some weights. When he walked into the gym, Olle sees Lucifer spread out in the middle of the boxing ring, reading. “Interesting book?” the doctor asks, leaning into the ring with a smile. 

Lucifer glides his eyes from the page and up to Olle, like he does not want to stop reading, “First in a long series.”

The hunter shakes his head, “I'm going to lift for a while, spot me?”

Lucifer nods, not look up from his book, “When you need it.” Olle chuckles as he walks over to the free weights. 

Fifteen minutes later, as Olle works his triceps, Lucifer looks up from his book and says, “Olle, do you feel that?”

The big man tries his best not to feel anything occurring in Creation, that is why he is so meticulous about keeping himself contained in a body, but he sits up and reaches out with a thought. A tremendous us of angelic power, Grace, has torn through the veil and brought more than one dead thing back to life. Olle only knows of three angels who have that much power since the fall. He looks over at Lucifer, “Find out what Baz is doing then get back here.” With a nod, the devil is gone. 

Back an instant later, he shakes his head, “It must have been Gabriel, Balthazar didn't even feel it until I asked.”

Olle only nods, having assumed that was the case, “Nothing we can do about it now, he doesn't want to be found. We'll just have to wait.”

“Why would he do it?” Lucifer asks. “If I felt it, surly Amara felt it. Crowley must have felt it. Every reaper on the planet felt it and Thanatos is going to be even more pissed at us than he was.”

Olle shakes his head, dropping back down on the bench and laying back, taking the bar in hand he says, “He knows the risks. He must have deemed it worth taking them.”

Lucifer nods and drops back down in the ring, with a thought his book is back in his hand. 

**

Gabriel reappears in the backseat of the Impala, listening to Sam tell Dean they need to seriously consider finding a way to get into Hell to talk to Lucifer and or Michael inside the Cage. With an angry shake if his head, the archangel travels back to the Bunker, landing in front of his brother where he sits in the boxing ring, watching Olle lift weights, while he reads the first in a long series of books by David and Leigh Eddings. 

“Where the Hell have you been?” Olle calls out to the Trickster-demigod before Gabriel has time to do anything but land.

“What the fuck, exactly, have you been showing Sam Winchester?” Gabriel asks his brother in a loud, exasperated, almost angry, tone; completely ignoring Olle's question. 

Olle stops what he is doing and moves closer to the ring, he wants to know where the archangel had been and why he was suddenly in such a foul mood. Lucifer stares at his brother, blank for a moment, trying to shift focus from his book to his brother. “What?” the confused archangel asks.

Gabriel huffs, shaking his head, and gets loud with his brother when he speaks again, “Sam is talking about going into Hell, back into the Cage! What the fuck have you been showing him? Why the hell are you still showing him anything?”

Lucifer is startled by his brother's anger, the archangel seems to shrink in on himself, dropping his book, forgotten, into his lap. The devil does not look up but he speaks clearly, “I was trying to make him understand that Dad is not going to help him, but that we could.” 

Gabriel looms over his brother and starts to pace, Olle moves over and climbs into the ring, but stays behind the angry archangel. Lucifer looks up at his brother then, unsure of himself and confused by Gabriel's sudden fury. “What did I do wrong? I thought we had talked about this? I thought you said it was a good idea to give him hope?” Lucifer really does not understand what is happening; he thought his brother approved, or at least accepted, what he was doing. Even Olle had not told him to stop.

“You didn't do anything wrong, Luce,” Olle answers firmly, finally coming put behind the pacing archangel. “What, though,” he asks, looming over Gabriel, “did you do that Luce and I felt it? You tore through the veil, you brought someone back!” Olle shakes his head, “Tell me it was Sam, Dean, or Kevin; anything else is stupid and reckless!”

Gabriel stops pacing, directly over his brother, to scowl down at him and, with an angry grunt, says, “All you've done is send him searching for answers where there aren't any! This is what you always do,” Gabriel says exasperated, shaking his head he turns away from Lucifer, arms crossed, to glare up at Olle, “You're okay with this? Sam wants to go back inside the Cage for answers!”

“Whatever you did, Gabriel,” Olle says using his full name, he never uses the archangel's full name, “it wasn't worth it or you wouldn't be trying to pick a fight where there isn't one. We can throw Sam off the idea of the Cage, easy. You did something you shouldn't have, for a reason you won't tell us, and you're deflecting!” Olle sighs, running his hand through is short hair, “Talk to me? Talk to us.”

“What do I always do Gabriel?” Lucifer asks confused. “All I wanted to do was make things better.”

Looking down at his brother with disdain, Gabriel spits out, “You always think you're making things better! All you do is break everything you touch!” With that, the archangel vanishes and the devil locks sad, tear filled eyes with Olle for a instant before he too is gone. 

“Fuck!” Olle exclaims, going over to pick up Lucifer's forgotten book. “Gabriel!” he hunter yells, turning a circle in the center of the ring; waiting for the archangel to show himself. When the room remains empty, Olle calls to Lucifer, “Hey Luce, man, it's okay. I don't know what your brother is angry about, but it's okay. This was so not about you! Can I talk to you? Please.” A few minutes pass and nothing, “Come on Luce,” Olle says sadly. “You forgot your book.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just finished this and haven't really even read through it to check spelling and flow. 
> 
> Total filler chapter that started out as one thing and, somehow, went off into something else. I'm trying to get to something, but it's slow going because I'm not sure, yet, how to get there.

Walking out of the ring and down the hall to the locker room, Olle pulls out his cell and calls Beth. When she picks up he starts immediately, “Is Luce there? Or Gabe?”

“He was here a little while ago,” she says, “but no, I haven't seen either of them. I can go look?”

“Please,” Olle says pushing the speaker phone button and tilting the phone against the tile so it will echo while he strips and picks a shower far enough away he can hear, but his phone won't get wet. 

“Nada,” Beth's voice echos from the phone and Olle curses again, “What happened?” she wants to know. 

“Something,” Olle calls out over the sound of water while he washes his hair, “but I have no idea what. Gabe's upset, angry, at himself I think, about whatever it is. He took it out on Luce, though, and said some stuff I think was meant more for him than his brother, but was effective none the less.”

“Dammit,” Beth grumbles. “You need to find them.”

“I'll summon them if I have to,” Olle says shaking water out of his hair and pouring soap in his hands. 

“Cas and the boys will wonder who you pissed off when they find you've been smited,” Beth says in jovial warning. 

Olle laughs bending over to wash his legs. “Just, if you see them,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah.” Beth says. “How is everything else, though? Metatron? Cas?”

“I felt sorry for him at first,” Olle says turning into the water to scrub the suds out of his chest hair. 

“I get that,” Beth says. “Now?”

“Now,” Olle shakes his head. “I shouldn't judge his pain, can't understand what he feels, and know I have no right to say anything to him unless it's asking him how I can help him.”

“But?”

“But he's not eating, won't talk to any of us, and if it weren't for someone being with him virtually 24/7,” Olle sighs turning the water off, “I caught him with a scalpel two days after he woke up and he is refusing to eat and I'm afraid, now that he's back in his room, he'll stop drinking. He can't be released to just try to live a human life, he'll walk into traffic as soon as our backs are turned, but there is no help we can give him if he refuses to talk to us.” Dry now, Olle carries his phone over to the bench where he changed earlier and starts to dress. 

“What has Cas said about it all? He was human, couldn't he talk to him?” Beth wonders.

“He was willing to heal the man enough for him to return to his room. I could ask him,” Olle says pulling a soft salmon colored Henley over a white undershirt before sitting down to pull on his socks and boots. “First priority, though, is figure out if Luce is okay and what the fuck is wrong with Gabe.”

“What set him off?” Beth wants to know.

“He was, apparently, with Sam and Dean and he saw something or heard something, he showed back up here bitching about Luce trying to reassure Sam they aren't alone in this; even without God's help. He was angry and he told his brother he broke everything he touched. Luce just vanished and won't answer my prayers. I'm gonna go look for him and, if he isn't here or there, I'm gonna call him.”

“Let me know what's going on. If I see Gabe I'll get Baz to come get you.”

“Thanks. I'll let you know. Bye Beth.” 

“Love you. Bye,” Beth says then hangs up and Olle smiles. The 'love you, bye' was how they use to always end conversations before; how he would talk to his parents and brothers and a few of his aunts and cousins, even some of his friends. He did not know he missed it until just now; the love is really there so saying it is important.

A quick but thorough search of the Bunker yields no archangels, so Olle takes the opportunity to stop in Sam's room, where Cas now pretty much lives. Sticking his head in the door, Olle asks, “Can we talk for a minute Cas?” With a nod from the angel, he comes further into the room. Dropping down on the bed, right in the way of the angel's view of the screen, Olle decides to ask if Cas would be willing to talk to Metatron, “It's about the Scribe.” Cas stiffens but nods his head, “He's not taking this whole person thing well.” The look on the angel's face makes Olle chuckle, “I know, I know, but he isn't eating and, with the I.V. gone, if he stops drinking he is going to end up malnourished and dehydrated. He'll die unless I drag him back to the hospital wing, re-hydrate him, and put in a feeding tube.”

“What does this have to do with me?” the angel asks from his slump under a blanket, leaned against three pillows. 

“I get the feeling, Cas,” Olle says reaching out to pat the angel's knee, “you're not doing well either.”

“What do you mean?” he asks shifting nervously. 

Olle smiles kindly, “You were human, what, a year? And since you juiced back up it's been go, go, go. Now, as dire as it all is, you're spending your down time in Sam's cast off sweats, Dean's old concert tees, huddled under a blanket on Sam's bed watching reruns of talk shows?” Cas sighs but does not speak. “You, more than anyone, can empathize with him. Tell me, would you have ever tried what he did?”

“There was a time,” Cas says slowly, without making eye contact, “when I first got back from Purgatory, when I was afraid I would. After, after I fell, survival was so,” Cas shakes his head, “hard. Just staying safe and making sure I had enough to live. It wasn't even about hiding from the angels.”

“I understand,” Olle says hoping Cas believes him. “He wants to do this, though, because he doesn't want the struggle of being human, aging, and dying. He wants to go back to Heaven, even if it is in death.”

“Does he really believe the angels will let him stay once he gets there?” Cas asks bewildered. 

Olle chuckles, “I don't think he has thought of that. I hadn't either, to be honest. Do you think they will seek him out and cast him out?”

Cas shakes his head again, but thinks for a moments before he responds, “Now that Hannah is gone, I have no idea what they would do. I know they cannot be trusted any longer to do anything our Father asked of us in the beginning. Do you want me to try talking to him? I don't know what type of insight I could provide. I don't even know if he will talk to me.”

“I don't expect you to sit and listen to him be belligerent. I don't even expect you to beg him to reconsider. He needs a shrink, but I don't know of one who will listen to an angel complain about not being an angel anymore.” Olle scratches his hand through his hair and worries he is spending too much time on this while not knowing where Gabriel and Lucifer are or how they are doing. “If you don't want to do this, I have a friend, she would, maybe, take him in if I asked her.”

“Is she a hunter?” Cas asks curious more about Olle's life and friends than anything that could happen to Metatron. 

“It would mean relocating him to Europe,” Olle needs this asshole to go away and he is not above dumping him in Kansas City for Beth to take care of. 

“He needs to stay here,” Cas says. “He is safe here and not a threat to anyone. I will talk to him,” the angel says on a sigh, sitting up and throwing the blanket off. 

Olle smiles, “Good. Thank you.” Getting up, the hunter follows the angel out of Sam's room and down the hallway toward Metatron's door. “I'll just let you talk to him,” Olle says pulling open the porthole in the door. With a nod, the big man heads down the corridor toward the War Room determined to find Gabriel and Lucifer now that Cas is occupied, hopefully helping both himself and Metatron.


	5. Chapter 5

Two hours, and repeated attempts to call both of the archangels, have failed. Cas and Metatron, though, are still talking quietly. A brief glance at the time let Olle know it was gone two a. m. and he realized he had been at this for nearly five hours. With a frustrated curse, he storms through the corridor toward the small magickal storeroom on the main floor. Gathering everything he needs to summon two archangels, he makes his way the garage. A quick ride on his bike, a few miles north of Lebanon, he finds a clearing, builds a small fire, and sets up the ritual. 

Summoning one archangel is dangerous, and stupid, but Olle figures, even with two, they are too distracted by their own hurt, to do him any real damage before they realize who summoned them. Once everything is ready, all he needs to do is add his blood and light the match, he tries prayer one last time, “Gabe, Luce, if you two don't answer me I'll be forced to do something stupid. Where the fuck are you? Come on, guys, we all need to talk.”

Lucifer appears across the fire from Olle, eyes red rimed and downcast. “I'm sorry, Olle. I just,” the archangel shrugs and sniffles, “I needed some time alone.” 

Olle sighs, relieved, a weight is gone from his chest, “I understand needing alone time Luce,” Olle says gently, “but please let me know you're okay.” He does not want to upset him further and will not scold him for needing to be alone. “Where were you?”

“You're right,” he says. “I'm sorry I was thoughtless. It is dangerous out there right now, especially for me, and I should have let you know I was alright.” Lucifer walks around the fire to sit on the ground and Olle drops beside him, “I was in Maryland.”

“Why were you in Maryland?” Olle asks before it clicks. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

“I just wanted to be somewhere familiar,” Lucifer says quietly. 

“Okay,” Olle says. “But, going back there can't be good for you. I burnt the place to the ground before the authorities could come looking.”

“How many people did I kill? All told, I mean. How many angels? How many fae? How many Children of Eve? You'll've kept count, I know,” Lucifer says. 

Olle squeezes his eyes tight shut, absolutely not thinking about that number, and shakes his head. “You do not break everything you touch!” Olle says fiercely. “You were young, we all were, and none of us, you, had no idea what The Mark would do to you or, in turn, what you would do to Creation. None of this is your fault!” Olle is so angry at Gabriel in this moment he is almost glad the archangel is not here. 

“Every demon that's ever rose from the rack, every fallen angel descended into Hell, every atrocity committed to build the Cage then reopen it,” Lucifer says starting to cry again, “all my fault.”

Olle cannot help how his heart breaks for the angel and he pulls him into his arms before saying, “Not all your fault, Luce. Michael's fault. Gabe's fault. My fault. No one, absolutely no one, gets out of life unscathed. We just live longer than most so, naturally, we do more damage than most. Casting judgment, laying blame, no one can do that. Besides,” Olle pulls back to look the angel in the eye, “I've known your brother a long time and I'm willing to stake anything on the fact that what he said was so much more about him, and how he feels about himself, than it was about you.”

“He's not wrong, you know,” Gabriel says stepping out of the shadows and into the fire light. 

Olle breathes a sigh of relief the archangel is okay, and pulls away from Lucifer before asking, “Where have you been?” His tone is angry with an undercurrent of worry, “I prayed and called and texted and prayed. I was going to summon you!”

“I needed some time,” Gabriel says coming over to sit beside his brother. 

“You should have taken said time,” Olle says, “before you decided to unload on your brother.” Olle shakes his head then, “I know how you work Gabe, please tell me you didn't do anything to draw more attention to yourself? When you brought whoever it was back, Luce felt that, I felt that, Amara and Crowley both probably felt that.”

Gabriel sighs, rubbing a hand over his face then through his hair, “A calculated risk. I couldn't let them stay dead. Zanna mean no harm to anyone.”

“What is going to happen,” Olle asks letting his anger at everything that has happened today show, “when Sam and Dean find out their dead imaginary friends are alive again? What is going to happen when Amara shows up and eats all their souls? The souls of their charges? Finds out Sam and Dean were there and connects them to me and me to you?” 

“I'm sorry Gabriel,” Lucifer says, “but Olle is right. As pitiable as the situation was, it wasn't worth the risk.”

Gabriel huffs, angry again, “I should have just stayed gone. Neither of you have any idea what you're talking about. I couldn't just stand there, see that, and do nothing! For all your books,” he says to his brother, “and all your lives lived,” he says to Olle, “how is it I'm the only one who can't stand injustice?” With a sneer at Olle, he attacks with something he knows will hurt the big man, “Kali would have agreed with me.” With that, he is gone. 

Olle picks up his makeshift alter, a flat stone covered in chalk with a copper bowl full of sand and herbs, and throws it across the fire, into the darkness with a rage filled scream. Lucifer flinches visibly at the outburst, though, and Olle calms almost immediately. “I'm sorry Luce. That was uncalled for. He was trying to hurt me.”

“He succeeded, didn't he?” Lucifer asks quietly. 

Olle falls down beside the archangel and sighs, “It would seem so. I've never been jealous, not even of her, but she, she doesn't like me at all. He loved her, probably still does, but she's cold and calculating and violent; if you aren't one of supplicants you're fair game, especially if you get in her way.”

“I saw that,” Lucifer chuckles, “even if I only actually saw her for a few moments.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Olle asks, changing the subject. “Whatever you may think, we're all to blame for the past Luce, and refusing to walk past it won't help you any. You've come a long, long way and I'm proud of you. If you feel like you need to take a few steps back, so you can think, I understand. Just, don't forget which way is forward.”

“I, I don't know how I feel right now,” Lucifer says. “I need to think some more, be alone for a while.”

“Don't go back to that damn convent,” Olle says. “Go home, you've got your own room. Beth won't let anyone bother you. You'll be safe there, if what your brother did put Amara on our tail, and, when you're ready, there are people who will want to help.”

“Okay,” he says simply, standing. “What about you, though? Are you going to be okay?”

Olle gets up, “He'll feel bad about what he said, probably did as soon as he said it. I need to figure out what is really eating at him and why he did what he did with the Zanna.”

“That wasn't an answer,” Lucifer says. 

“I'm more angry than I am hurt, because he set out to hurt me. I'll get a torch, pick up this mess, and, when the fire burns out, I'll head back to the Bunker; he won't leave Cas alone without telling me.”

“Were they ever lovers?” Lucifer asks curiously. 

Olle smiles, “They are soulmates, but like you and Michael. It was never, at least for Cas, about romantic, sexual love. Gabe had me, and anyone else willing, so I don't think it was ever an issue. When Cas decided to go back, even though Gabe could have kept him from being summoned, it was because Cas still believed in the mission and, naively, in the holiness of all angels, even Michael. None of us knew how bad what Michael did would be. None of us knew he would, or even could, make them all forget.” 

Lucifer nods. “It's late,” he says then. “Let me help you with this.” Before Olle can answer, the angel snaps and the hunter finds himself back in the garage, on his motorcycle, all his supplies packed away in his saddlebags. 

Olle roams through the Bunker, headed to bed after returning his supplies to the storage closet, but, on his way through the War Room, he notices a light on in the back of the library. Making his way through the stacks, Olle finds Gabriel slumped in a leather chair, bourbon in hand, in the farthest alcove. The angel looks to be putting a serious dent in Dean's stores, sleepy eyed with flushed cheeks, and he has been crying if his swollen, bloodshot eyes are any indication. Olle squats in front of him and, reaching out to rub his thighs, asks, “Are you ready to talk to me instead of flinging insults?” Gabriel just starts crying again, silent tears, as he nods in the affirmative.


	6. Chapter 6

With a tired sigh, Olle drops down into the chair beside Gabriel and, taking an empty glass from the table between them, empties the decanter before he speaks, “I'm not going to listen to you babble on, full of apologies and tears, because you're drunk Gabe, so stop right now. I don't want your 'I'm sorry's; just tell me what's wrong.” 

Gabriel is silent for a long time, deep, gulping breaths and wet sniffles coming from his side of their little alcove while Olle looks into the dark library or down into his drink. When the angel finally speaks, he is no longer crying and sounds almost sober, “While you were still trapped in Purgatory, warring your way through Hell, and trying to free the twelve, I was alone in the fairy realms. Most of what was there, like everywhere else, was destroyed by what we had to do. Zanna, though, were one of the few creatures that survived.” Olle nods and Gabriel goes on quietly, “You know I picked up most of my tricks, most of my knowledge of magick, from the time we spent there. Before you joined me there, though, the Zanna were the first to offer to help me. In return for all they taught me, I taught them how to move through the divide without being summoned.” Olle takes a long drink and stays quiet, he believes he knows where this is going, but he needs to hear the angel say it. “If I had never helped them, none of this would have happened,” Gabriel says in a whisper. “All of it is all my fault and I couldn't just let them die.”

“I understand that you feel guilty,” Olle starts slowly. “I know what it is like to feel responsible, you know I do, but it was thoughtless and dangerous in the grand scheme of things Gabe.” Olle takes a long drink from his glass before he goes on, “I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm not. But, you let your feelings of responsibility override your good judgment here and then, instead of talking to me, talking to your brother, you picked a fight with us and not only tried but succeeded in hurting both of us.”

“Fuck,” Gabriel says ashamed. “You're right. I know you're right. Apologizing won't fix it, though, will it?”

Olle shakes his head, “You set out to hurt me because you were in pain, I get that, but you can't do shit like that with Lucifer right now, maybe ever. You fucked him up a little Gabe; maybe set him back some,” Olle says quietly, still not looking at the angel. 

“Christ,” Gabriel says leaning back in his chair and rubbing his hands down his face. “I gotta go fix this,” he says seriously, sitting up. 

Olle puts a hand out now, across the table to rest on the angel's forearm, “Not now Gabe. Give him some time. I sent him home, he said he wanted to be alone, to sort out how he felt. What you said made him start thinking about everything he'd ever done, how much he'd messed up, how much blame he wants to carry. Leave him alone for a while. He'll just end up asking you questions that will cause a fight and more hurt feelings for you both.”

The angel nods and does not speak for a while. Olle's hand moves back over to the arm of his chair and he finishes his drink. “So,” the angel finally starts quietly, “how do I fix this between us?”

Olle chuckles, shaking his head, “When have I ever not let you off too easy? But,” his voice hardens here, “throwing her at me? Like that? There is mean, Gabriel, then there is cruel. Especially,” Olle says seriously, “when what you said was an out and out lie.”

“I know,” the archangel says quietly, ashamed. “You're just another thing I don't deserve.” He turns his head then, leaned back on the chair and tilted, to stare sleepily, still a little drunk, at Olle's profile, “I miss you.”

Olle shakes his head, “You're still drunk angel.” With a sigh, the big man stands up and, turning to Gabriel, reaches out his hand, “Lets get you in the bed so you can sleep it off. I'm not talking to you right now. I'm still mad at you,” he says seriously as he pulls the archangel to his feet and down the corridor toward his room. Cas, he notices, is no longer outside Metatron's room when they go by. 

Gabriel is silent as he lets Olle lead him to bed, undress him, lay him down, and crawl in after him. He lays there a long time, Olle curled up on his own side of the bed, feeling an unfathomable distance between them for the first time. Finally, when Olle is relaxed in sleep, Gabriel moves to slowly curl himself up against the immortal before he lets himself fall asleep. 

**

When Gabriel wakes in the morning, he notices the absence of Olle's heat and form immediately, but he hears the shower and rolls over on his back with a sigh. His head is a dull throb; he could banish the feeling with a thought, but figures he deserves it. He is definitely going to have to restock before Dean gets back and notices the missing crates. “I never should have brought up Kali,” he sighs. She would have been furious with him, he knows; probably would have killed the Zanna all over again just to spite him. Not to mention throwing her very existence in Olle's face, after what she did. He groans a frustrated sound and rolls over to rub his face in the earthy smell of Olle still clinging to the sheets and pillow. He has no idea what to say to the big man, what Olle intends to say to him, or how to apologize and let the man know how much he actually means it. 

Olle comes back in the room then, wrapped only in a towel, and looks down at the angel in his bed; rolling around in the sheets like a dog scenting itself. The big man's heart clenches at the sight and he wants, so badly, to still be furious with the angel, but it is just not in him to stay angry at Gabriel for any length of time. 

“I'm sorry,” Gabriel says rolling over and looking up at Olle with a serious expression. “I don't know what else to say, how to make it better. You know I'm not good at this!” the angel says sitting up and crossing his legs in the middle of the bed to look at Olle as he stands at the foot of the bed watching him, towel still firmly wrapped around his waist. Gabriel starts to fidget as Olle stares, hands on hips, not saying anything, and the angel wants to snark at him to just say something because that is what he does, but he thinks it might make things worse.

Eventually, Olle sighs and, running his hand through his hair, goes over to drop down into the chair by the bed. Leaning back, elbows in the arms of the chair and legs spreed, unseemly, as his towel rids up, the immortal hunter finally speaks, “What kills me,” he sighs frustrated, “is I'm not mad at you anymore, but we can't just fall into bed together to make up and get past this!”

Gabriel turns to the left to look at Olle and, with a sharp, sad chuckle, laments, “Crawling into your lap and making us both forget what happened is top of my list right now. Needing you is never going away, is it?” he wonders quietly.

Olle shoves his left hand through his hair and tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling, “You've seen how much I want you, love you, need you Gabe.” Olle's head comes down quickly and he stares hard at the trickster-archangel-demigod, “Just, don't act like there is an after here angel; you intend on dying again to get out of trying to pick up the pieces after. If that's the case, I'd rather have you now and lose you, than lose you while you're right in front of me.”

“So I stay with you and die or stay with you and watch the world burn?” he asks. 

“You could stay with me and we could kill your aunt. You could stay with me until she unmakes everything and we are both gone. You could leave,” Olle says quietly, “and I could pretend you're dead again.” He gets up then, and drops to his knees on the bed, so close to Gabriel their legs are touching; the sheet all that separates them because Olle's towel fell loose half in the chair and half in the floor. “I want you, I don't just want to fuck you Gabe! I love your smell and how our hands always seem to fit together no matter what we look like. I love the noises you make when you sleep and when you cum! I love that you always look the same to me, no matter what you look like! I love how much you love your brother and how willing you are to lose what this is between us so you can save Creation, again! But I hate that about you right now, too, because all I want is to know, all I've ever known for certain, is I'm not going to be alone because, no matter what, I've got you. Only,” Olle is starting to tear up, “I don't anymore.” The big man sits back on his heels and shakes his head, “I know how important the whole world is, but you always seem to let me get lost in them; where is what you want in all that you're trying to save?” he asks desperately.

Gabriel shakes his head, starting to cry, “You talk about me like I'm some kind of self-sacrificing hero. You always did see me through rose colored glasses,” he says quietly, reaching out to take Olle by the waist and shift to his knees as well before pulling the human down into a sincere, acing kiss that Olle returns.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been stuck here since I first started posting The Ancestor series. I'm not sure how good it is. I wrote it all this afternoon and I'm just relieved I finally got it out of me. I've felt like their was a knot in my chest and a cork in my brain for weeks. No one reads my work until I post it, but I normally obsess about it; especially grammar, which I fail at miserably, and spelling. If anything is too messed up I'll try to fix it later; I just have to get this out there or I feel like I'll lose my mind.

Gabriel can't stop the voice in the back of his mind telling him what a terrible idea this is, but, at the same time, it feels like all he has ever wanted, all he has ever known, is the man in front of him, kissing him, clinging to him like his existence depends on their ability to keep touching; Gabriel thinks it might. Everything feels like it is moving in slow motion and Gabriel doesn't think, he just reacts, pulling Olle down on top of him on the bed; sheet still separating them. Olle growls into the angel's mouth at the offending piece of cotton, ripping and pulling until not only it, but Gabriel's boxer-briefs are wadded in a heap at the foot of the bed. Skin on skin, together for the first time in months, it feels like millennia, each lets their hands wander hot skin while Olle catches his breath, breathing into Gabriel's mouth; afraid to pull away and open his eyes. 

The need both men radiate, one for the other, is a balm to their non-existent souls as they spend hours touching and tasting, pulling and pushing; drowning in each other. When Gabriel positions himself behind Olle, finally, the immortal worries his face in the mattress as his hips sway into the angel's steely grasp. The first rasp of holy tongue runs a shiver through Olle's over-sized frame and his back dips as his hips push into the angel's ravenous mouth. 

Gabriel brings the big man to the edge over and over, first with his mouth then his hands, each time pulling back at the critical moment with calming strokes and soothing nips and licks along his back and thighs; to bring Olle back to earth before he begins again. The angel never speaks and Olle, long ago, became incapable of forming words in any language he'd ever known; his pleading, though, is well understood. 

When Gabriel slides, slowly, into Olle's welcome heat, he remembers every time he has given himself over to the bigger man for safe keeping. His hands clench on Olle's hips, right moving up sweat-slick skin to grasp his neck and calm, with a sound, the doctor's expectant whimpering. The archangel drags out slowly, pushing back in achingly slow and both men groan deep in their throats, Olle ending on a sob at how wonderful it feels to be here again. 

The push and pull seems to last forever and only an instant, before Gabriel pulls Olle up, back to chest, and locks his arms around the hunter. He holds Olle still as he barely moves inside him, grinding against his prostate with every dragging movement. Olle wraps his hands around Gabriel's ass, clenching and pulling, as his head drops back on the angel's shoulder; a litany of desperate noises falling constantly from his lips. 

The trickster-archangel is flooded with memory of every wrong thing he has ever done, proof of how undeserving he is of the man in his arms, and he clings tighter still. Olle is right, he realizes, since the beginning, Gabriel has picked him up or thrown him down at his discretion; Olle never knowing if he was safe in the arms of the angel. As the all too familiar build of pressure starts to spread out from the base of his spine, Gabriel aches; the sudden desire to flood Olle with everything he is, everything he feels for the immortal, is overwhelming and it feels like, if he could only hold him tighter, they could stay like this forever and nothing else would matter. Olle unleashes desperate, grasping noises Gabriel knows mean the big man is close finding his own release and the angel increases his speed, keeping the perfect angle he had been working for the better part of a half hour already. With his eyes clenched tightly shut, the angel pushes his forehead into the center of Olle's back and thrusts one last time, clinging to the bigger man, as they both come and Grace floods the entire room and both men to shout their release like a battle cry. 

**

Olle feels the burn of Gabriel's true form searing his skin, going deep, ripping through the tattoo on his side and blazing through his soul, through Creation. He knows, instinctively, what happened, but his body is still singing from his orgasm and he can feel Gabriel behind him, inside him, chest heaving as he clings to him; afraid to move now because he knows what he has done, but he has no idea how Olle is going to react. 

Gabriel's hands, right, in the center of his chest and left, low on his body in the juncture of his hip and groin, press tighter, holding him, somehow, even closer and, face pressed into the space between Olle's shoulders, he says, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean, I'm sorry. I can't, I won't. Please. I'm sorry.” Gabriel absolutely did not mean to lay claim to him and he knows it was a stupid, reckless idea to let himself get so far gone he did it without thinking. 

Olle drops all of his weight down on the angel, because he knows he can take it, and, wrapping hands behind him to hold on, he pants out, “Please, please don't leave, but, God Gabe, please don't expect me to stay.”

The two sit like that, in the center of Olle's giant bed in the Men of Letter's Bunker, until even Gabriel's knees start to ache and he has long since slipped, soft, from Olle's body. Finally, as if on instinct, they slowly slip apart at the same time, Olle pitching himself forward onto his hands and knees before crawling up the bed to lay face down in the mattress while Gabriel tilts himself sideways and stretches out there, staring at Olle. The angel wishes, suddenly, the man would roll over so he could see, then he remembers 'please don't expect me to stay' and he wants to die, again, right there and never see anything ever, ever again. 

“I know what this means,” Olle says, head turned away, still on his stomach. “I know what this means like that idiot Dean doesn't and I know what you wanted when you did it. But. But you said. You said you didn't mean to, you said that, and that is why you can't expect me to stay.” Without another word Olle slides off his side of the bed and slips into the bathroom; Gabriel hears the shower. 

**

Olle stands in front of the bathroom mirror and looks, shower billowing steam behind him. He is sticky after sex for the first time in months, the backs of his thighs wet with Gabriel's drying cum and Gun Oil coating him, very nearly, from waist to knees. What fascinates him, though, keeps him from the shower, are two beautiful hand-prints raised up red and raw and angry on his skin. He places his hands over them, presses into his flesh, and hisses at the pain but refuses to make himself stop. They will heal to a searing white on his skin, almost impossible to see, but, even when all the burnt away hair grows back, he will never not see them. He wants to rush back out there and tell him he will stay, he will stay forever, but he knows he absolutely cannot because Gabriel said he 'didn't mean' to and that means he does not want it, does not want him, if it means losing everything else. He steps into the shower then and, as the water washes away the grit and the sweat and the sex, he feels like it hollows him out as well. When he comes back out, the bed is clean and the angel is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank Amos Lee for this chapter. I had no idea who he was until about two hours ago and Careless was what I was listening to when everything sort of clicked for me. I'm completely in love now.


	8. Chapter 8

Olle drops to the bed with a sob; curling up in the fetal position, he hugs his arms to himself and cries like he never has before. He cries until he physically cannot anymore, too dehydrated to form tears, his eyes swollen shut and his throat scratching and choking him he is so parched. Wishing he could die, really die, from this feeling, Olle crawls out of bed and over to the small refrigerator in the corner by the armchair. Pulling a bottle of water out, he sits back on his knees and gulps the bottle before grabbing another and crawling back to bed. When sleep finally finds him, it is only because the ache in his head and his heart refuse to let him do anything else. The nightmares, when they come, are ones he would have once considered happy dreams; memories of every touch, every taste of the archangel drench his brain in agony. 

**

Gabriel reappears in one of the fourth floor bedrooms at Olle's home in Kansas City. The rooms aren't furnished, but he drops to his knees on the generic gray-blue carpet with an agonizing wail. He wishes it were safe for him to run a thousand, and million, miles away and pound his grief into the bones of the Creation; maybe Olle would feel it then and know how much this destroys him. After his initial wail, silent sobs wrack the angel's body and he wishes, suddenly, he were in a proper vessel because all he can feel are Olle's hands on him, and the power of Olle's magick putting him back together in this image and containing him so he could be safe. He wonders, in the madness filling his mind right now, if Lucifer has realized, yet, that they aren't actually contained in a vessel. Olle merely made them something their Father didn't, safe to see, safe to be, whole in a way no other angel was because they walk among men without a vessel; neither diminished nor destructive. 

The trickster realizes, then, he is being held and rocked, slowly, as quiet soothing noises fill the room and he looks up, barely able to see through tears and swollen eyes, to see Lucifer crying along with him. “...okay little brother,” the devil mumbles into Gabriel's hair. “It's okay. You'll be okay.”

Gabriel wonders how much time has past, how long Lucifer has been with him, and, realistically, how much longer he can cry; even if it feels like it could go on forever. Gulping in great, deep breaths, the angel tries to stop crying, tries to apologize to his brother for the hurtful things he said to him just yesterday, but all he can do is cling to Lucifer as agony wracks through him in a way he has never known. Gabriel allows himself to drift off, hoping sleep will stop the crying, at least.

**  
Beth wakes up, disentangles herself from Balthazar's sleeping form and goes into the bathroom. She glances at the alarm clock on her way and figures she should stop staying up all night with the archangel; just because he doesn't need to sleep doesn't mean she can stay up for days. When she comes out of the WC she turns to wash her hands and sees herself in the mirror for the first time; her whole world stops at what wasn't there before. Two white scars glare at her from the mirror, hand-prints that were not there when she went to sleep just before dawn. “Baz!” she exclaims in a dangerously calm voice as she stalks back into the bedroom. “Baz, wake up! Did you do this?” she points angrily at the center of her chest while the groggy angel looks up with sleepy eyes and sex-mussed hair. 

“Do what?” he asks on a yawn. Suddenly, he starts and stares hard at Beth's body. Coming up to his knees on the bed, he exclaims, “That was not me!” pointing, for emphasis, at her chest.

About that time, a piercing wail echos through the house and Beth clutches her newest, first, scars instinctively. “Fuck!” she swears, dropping down sideways on the bed, in front of Balthazar. 

“What are you going to do?” the angel asks sadly, tracing his fingers over the hand-print where hip meets groin. 

Crying silently, elbow obscuring her face, she sighs, “Nothing, if that was any indication. What can I do? It's between them,” she says. “It has to be.”

Balthazar shifts her around like a rag doll in the bed, until he is firmly settled between her thighs, arms braced around her head, “Your body tells a different story Bethy. I'm not so foolish as to believe you really are two different people,” he says quietly. “Especially where my older brother is concerned.”

Beth smiles, but she won't uncover her eyes. “Will you just hold me for a while, please?” she asks, knowing she is being selfish. “I just, I need someone to hold me together until I feel like I can do it on my own; then I need to go check on Olle.”

Balthazar gathers her in his arms, rolling until he is on his back, and rubs her back; ignoring the moisture falling on his chest while he shushes her quietly. So many lives torn and frayed by his brother's cowardice, he thinks. Gabriel has always been afraid, just as much of success as he was of failure, and more of himself and what he is capable of than anything. Olle suffers, Beth suffers, Creation suffers, every time Gabriel turns away from his feelings. If he weren't certain Lucifer would do more than smite him, he would give his younger older brother a hefty piece of his mind as soon as he drops Beth with Olle. As it is, he allows himself to drift back to sleep soon after he realizes she has as well. 

**  
Beth wakes several hours later, still safe in Balthazar's arms and terrified of leaving them. She sighs and tries to burrow closer to the angel. “Are you okay?” he asks her sleepily, trying to stretch without dislodging her from her snuggle. 

She smiles, laughing, and rolls away from him so he can move. “I am,” she says moving back into his space once he settles back into the bed. “Are you?” she asks, almost hesitant to know the answer. 

He smiles and reaches down to capture her mouth, willingly given and eagerly accepted. “I am,” he says truthfully. “As much as I love you, beautiful, I'm not in-love with you. I'm not the type,” he kisses her again with a smile. “Now,” he says rolling away to stand, “we have sex in your gloriously enormous shower before I take you to see the big man, how does that sound?” She uses sex to distract him from emotions all the time, he can return the favor. 

Beth smiles, nodding, but, as she is rolling off her side of the bed, Balthazar hears Olle's voice raised in prayer, “Baz,” he sounds awful the angel thinks. “Baz, can you come and get me, please?” the heartbroken hunter asks. “I really need to talk to Beth.”

Balthazar sighs, “I'm afraid we'll have to wait on our shower, love. The man in question is praying to me, wanting me to bring him back here to you as we speak.” Beth's face falls minutely, but she nods, somber. “Go jump in the shower and I'll be back in a flash,” he says as he picks his clothes up off the floor and starts to dress. 

Taking his time, Balthazar finds all his clothes and proceeds to dress himself like a human would; the more time it takes him, the longer Beth has to compose herself. When he has finally slipped himself into everything he kicked off last night, he knows he can no longer postpone the inevitable; with a thought, he is gone.


	9. Chapter 9

Olle wakes up, empties the bottle of water by the bed, and looks at the time; mid-afternoon. Stumbling toward the bathroom, he refuses to take a third shower today, no matter how horrible and gummy he feels from crying, and proceeds to stick his head under the faucet of cold running water. Pulling on clothes for the first time today, he refuses to arm himself, or put on shoes, before making his way down the corridor. 

Checking on Metatron, the former angel is sitting on his cot glumly staring at the door, Olle chuckles at the finger offered for his time and heads to the kitchen. Gallons of coffee sound like a good idea, so he makes a full pot and, while it brews, eats a half dozen chocolate chip cookies Sully left for Sam. Looking in the refrigerator and scouring the cabinets make him ache for the Farmer's Market, because, besides the sweet treats the Zanna made, Olle could consume his weight in alcohol, pickles, and sliced American cheese, but that is all the food they have. 

Downing one mug of coffee quickly, Olle fills his Yeti again and prays. He needs something to eat, and he needs Beth; maybe more than anything. When the angel finally arrives, Olle has tilted the last of the coffee into his mug and is throwing the empty container of half-and-half in the bin. 

“How are you?” Balthazar asks, sincere concern written all over his face. 

Olle turns up his mug before putting the lid on. “It overrode the tattoo, didn't it?” he asks sadly. Shaking his head, he shrugs. “Is she burnt or scared? No,” he shake his head again quickly. “Just, I want to go home Baz; just for a little while. I need her.”

“Come on Ol,” the angel says reaching out; with a hand to the big man's shoulder, they are gone. 

**

The comforting familiarity of his room, in his home, immediately shifts to panic when he realizes there is no other safe place for Gabriel to be and he asks, “Where is he Baz?”

“He is in the house,” the angel says softly. “Lucifer is with him in one of the fourth floor bedrooms. I told him you were coming home, he won't let him bother you.”

Olle heaves a sigh of relief but there is still a tightness to him now, knowing Gabriel is there, in the building, somewhere. “Thank you. I hate to kick you out of what's been your room, Baz, but could I, we, be alone?”

Balthazar smiles, “You're okay. It's your room. You need to eat anyway,” the angel says backing toward the door. “I make a mean crepe, how about I go do that?”

Olle smiles fondly, he has never heard the angel offer to do anything before. “Thanks Baz.” With a nod, the angel goes out the door. 

Beth come out of the bathroom a few moments later, Olle has sprawled out on the huge chair across the room. “You look good in my shirt beautiful,” he says to her as she straddles his legs, hair a wet , heavy braid down her back, wearing just one of his white button-down shirts and a pair of his boxer-briefs. 

Grinning, she settles on his thighs. “Really just going for comfortable,” she says as he grimaces at her weight on top of his jeans rubbing the unhealed brand. “Oh,” she shuffles back a bit. “You should really take your pants off.”

Laughing, he lets her help him wiggle out of his pants, until they are down around his knees. “What the fuck are we going to do now?” he needs to know.

Pulling his shirt over his head, she smiles sadly, “What happened? You tell me that, and maybe we can figure something out.”

Olle sighs shifting his legs to pull his pants all the way off and put his feet back up on the ottoman in front of them. “I wish I could just show you. I wish you just knew. I want you here,” he puts his hand over the swollen burn on his chest with a grimace. 

“Are we too pulled apart like this?” she asks sadly. 

With a sigh, Olle wraps his arms around her hips, “I don't know. Right now I think so, but I don't think this ache would go away or be any easier to bare with you gone.” He has a strong suspicion it might, actually, be worse. 

“If I could feel it for you,” she says twisting around on his lap to sit sideways and lean against his side instead of on his chest, “you know I would.”

Olle settles in comfortably, her in his lap, and starts to tell her everything that has happened between he and Gabriel since the Darkness was released. Half through his tale, right after he finishes telling her about the Encantado, a tray appears on the table beside them; sweet and savory crepes. Olle asks her to remind him to thank Balthazar and commend the angel on his culinary abilities. He finishes his story with himself curled up crying on his bed, alone, after coming out of the shower. His eidetic memory really comes in handy, but he is thankful he doesn't have to tell this tale to anyone else because he is sobbing, again, at the end of it all; her eyes are not dry either. 

Sliding off his lap, she grabs two bottles of water from the small refrigerator in the corner and, settling back in, starts, “You know he didn't mean he didn't mean to; even though he didn't mean to.”

“I know it was an accident, and I know what he meant was 'I know I shouldn't have done that, because it will only make this harder, but I got too caught up in how much I feel for you.' But that wasn't how it sounded to my addled brain at the time,” Olle exasperates. “I'll burn the world down to keep him safe, I can't lose him again, even if I never get to keep him.” 

“So,” she says emptying her water bottle, “I think you should go upstairs and talk to him; and maybe not have sex with him when you're trying to have an argument.” Olle shoves her gently on the ass as she crawls off his lap to gather their dirty dishes and she stumbles a bit; smiling over her shoulder at him. 

“I think you should put some clothes on,” he says lightheartedly. “Your ass looks good enough to eat.”

“We're way too vain,” she smirks. “I was thinking about that in the shower.”

“Even if we do say so ourselves,” he laughs; she sticks her tongue out at him.

“Seriously? I look like Ashley Graham and a UFC fighter had a baby. I'm not even sure there is a way to describe you except wishing Facebook had a 'drool until you melt into a puddle' button because, yeah, muscle bear much?” she says laughing at the ridiculously offended look on his face. 

“I'm pretty sure I wasn't concentrating on how hot you should be when I was trying not to lose my mind. I'm also pretty sure, when the Earth spit me back out as a baby, I had no conscious choice in the matter,” Olle says standing up and starting to pull his jeans back on, but he scowls at them before going to the dresser and grabbing a pair of soft cotton sleep pants. “When have we ever given any thought to what we should look like more than fitting in with the people we were with?”

She shrugs, picking up the tray, and following him out of the room and downstairs to the kitchen. 

Pulling beer out of the refrigerator for them both, he wonders, “Where are Kevin and Linda?”

“Kevin is probably reading, Linda too for that matter,” she answers plopping down at the island with her beer and staring across at him; still in front of the refrigerator. “I don't usually see them until dinner and after. Unless we're training.”

“I've left you all alone with this,” he says suddenly. “I'm sorry.”

She shrugs, turning up her bottle again, “No more than I have you. Being out there alone, hunting alone? I get to stay at home and babysit, still get to come and go as I please, everyone around me knows the truth about me; you've got it worse Olle.” Her counterpart shakes his head in reluctant agreement before turning up his own bottle. “So,” she says cheerily, “how about you go run Lucifer off and have a real conversation with Gabe? Tell you still love him. Tell him you still want him. Ask him what he wants to do. Figure out how we keep our best friend. Tell him about Sam,” she says with a pitch to her voice letting him know she realized he hadn't yet. 

“Sam's not important; sure as hell not this important. Sam is nothing compared to this,” Olle says. 

“But,” she says seriously, “he could be, when you've talked yourselves stupid and realized we can't go on like this. When you both admit, say out loud, that it is better to cut your loses and remember what we had than keep going at this all or nothing. We aren't safe with him; have never been safe with him. He will never choose us, choose what he wants most in Creation, over anything or anyone else's best interest.” 

She just said what Olle knows he has known this whole time, but couldn't admit. The Mark, splitting Creation, going to Hell; Gabriel was directly or indirectly responsible for all of it and he never once thought about what would happen to Olle when he asked more of him than he was ever willing to give to anyone but Gabriel. Tossing his bottle in the recycle bin, he nods, heading for the stairs.


	10. Chapter 10

It is the only bedroom on the fourth floor where the door is closed, but Olle doesn't knock; he just goes in quietly. Lucifer is sitting in the corner, as far away from the door as possible, with Gabriel curled around him, head in his older brother's lap, asleep. Olle comes up to stand over the archangels, both so fragile despite the awesome power they possess. 

“Luce,” the immortal nods quietly. 

“Olle,” Lucifer says quietly. “Can you tell me what happened? He hasn't been able to form a whole sentence and I've been sitting here letting him sleep so long I can't feel my legs.” The angel smiles fondly, carding a hand through his brother's hair. Olle doesn't talk, just pulls up his shirt and down the left side of his soft cotton pants and the devil's eyes get huge for a moment before he nods in understanding. 

“He said he didn't mean to, Luce,” Olle says sliding down the wall as far away from Gabriel as he could get and still be close enough to whisper to the angel. “So, I told him he couldn't expect me to stay and, when I got out of the shower, he was gone.”

“He loves you,” Lucifer says. “You know he does. But, I'm learning, that isn't always enough; especially when you're afraid. And my little brother,” he says sadly, hand in Gabriel's hair again, “has always been afraid.”

Olle nods, tearing up again, he thought he had cried enough for lifetimes of hurt today, but apparently not. “He is and he doesn't feel worthy of anything but sacrifice.”

“We really are like the Winchesters,” Lucifer says, “aren't we?”

“He's Dean to the core,” Olle says with a smile. “And yet, I find myself thinking more about Sam.”

“Uh, that doesn't mean you're attracted to me, does it?” the devil asks with a jovial cringe. 

Before Olle can do more than smile and nod firm denial, Gabriel stirs in his brother's lap. Lucifer rubs his back slowly as his brother wakes up. When the angel has heaved himself into a sitting position, Lucifer between the two of them, he looks around, eyes freezing on Olle. 

“How long have you been here?” the archangel-demigod croaks through a dry throat. Lucifer hands his brother a bottle of water that didn't exist a moment ago. Gulping the contents, he just stares at Olle. 

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Lucifer looks between them and says, “I'm going downstairs,” before he disappears. 

Mid-drink, Gabriel's water turns to whiskey. “So,” he trails off, just staring at Olle.

“I can't do this anymore Gabe,” the big man admits suddenly. He had meant to ease into it, but, once he starts, he can't seem to stop. “Being with you is killing me when I never actually get to die. I keep giving and giving to you; everything I am has always been yours to have and do with what you will. But you're afraid to give me anything of yourself. You want to,” Olle says sadly, “but you never do. I won't tell you I don't love you, because I do, and I always will, but I'm done waiting on the sidelines for you to pick me up again when it suits you.” Olle takes the angel's whiskey away from him then and drinks the last four fingers in the bottle. “I can't let myself be in-love with you anymore. We've already established we can't be together and we made a mistake, this,” he rubs his hands over the covered burns, “was a mistake.”

“You know it wasn't,” he says quickly. “You know it couldn't have been. I wanted, want, you.” He reaches for the empty plastic bottle, but Olle shakes his head and Gabriel chuckles, “You're right. Giving you up, though, I don't know if I can do that.”

“I don't think I'm going to give you a choice,” Olle says. “I know,” he starts seriously, “I know we can't get away from each other the way things are right now with your aunt, but I have to distance myself from you. I was so glad, fuck Gabe, I was so goddamn glad you were back!” Olle says tearing up again. “But,” he sighs, rubbing his face roughly, “but I was fine when you were gone. I got past it. I can do that again. I will.”

Gabriel just nods. “I never thought about how much shit I dropped in your lap just showing up in that parking lot.”

“Did you even care?” Olle asks sadly. 

“No,” the angel says. “No, I don't think I did.” 

Both are quiet for a long time, before Olle gets up and starts for the door, “I'm gonna have Baz take me to get my bike and I'm gonna tell Cas I've caught a case. I need to be here for a while.” 

**

Olle leaves Gabriel alone in the growing dark, where the angel curls back up and stares into the empty room. He has no idea how much time passes before Lucifer is there again, lifting his head into his lap and stroking a hand through his hair gently. “What possessed you to claim him?” his brother asks quietly. “Beth, you know, is marked as well. Do you understand how significant that is? What you did shouldn't have been possible.”

“You get that he's not the whole universe, right?” Gabriel asks. “Not really. Not exactly.”

“He is, though, little brother,” Lucifer says. “They are. And you've just taken responsibility for it, vowed to protect it, sworn to keep it safe. Tied yourself to it like no one, but Dad, ever has.”

“Yeah, well,” he says resigned, “I have been so callous and lackadaisical with him before that I figured, 'go big or go home.' I guess I fucked that up too,” he says into the dark. 

“Maybe you should remember what the two of you have had in the past. It wasn't always so dire, was it? You came together and fell apart over and over; Olle told me that. Why should that change?” he wants to know, trying to help his brother find a way to make this alright again. 

Gabriel laughs then, sadly, “Why are you even trying to help me? I was so mean to you yesterday; fuck it feels like a lifetime ago, but it was just yesterday wasn't it?”

“It was,” Lucifer says stopping his track through his brother's hair. “But, you were right; even if you didn't mean it.”

“I wasn't,” Gabriel says looking up at his brother quickly. “I wasn't.” Sitting up, Gabriel twists around to take his brother's hands, “The Mark made you do terrible things. I've seen what it is capable of with you, with Cain, with Olle. The rest,” he says squeezing his brother's hands and tilting his head to force eye contact, “Michael, Sam nothing you've done since you were free of the Mark has been anything but good.” 

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions little brother; I should know,” he says quietly. “I shouldn't have been trying to talk to Sam,” he says. “And Michael,” his voice breaks and he shakes his head, “I can't, I can't talk about that.”

“Okay,” Gabriel says quickly, “that's fine. It's okay.”

“There are so many dark, awful, things I've done, though,” Lucifer says. Confession seems to be easier for the both of them in the dark. “What I did to Olle after I killed you. For fucks sake Gabriel,” Lucifer says emphatically, “I killed you!”

Gabriel leans into his brother's touch, “I always figured, after what I did to you, you'd do a lot worse to me than kill me Luci. I got off easy.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Lucifer asks. 

“No,” Gabriel admits quickly. “Not for a while, at least.”

“Well,” Lucifer says standing up, “you can't sit up here, alone, in the dark. You have to come downstairs or across the hall and interact. Learning how to be around them with others around will help; I think. Based,” he starts distractedly, “on everything I've been reading about behavior anyway. You know, there are a lot of surprisingly helpful websites devoted entirely to human behavior and social interaction.”

Gabriel laughs, letting his brother pull him to his feet, “Who taught you to Google?”

“Kevin,” the archangel says seriously. “Now, let's go.” Gabriel allows himself to be led out the door and across the hall where the man in question is playing 8-ball with Balthazar while Linda reads on one of the chaise lounges; Olle and Beth nowhere in sight.


	11. Chapter 11

Olle grunted in pain as Beth made contact with his ribs; he was more than just distracted, he was seriously off his game. Normally, when they spared, it was like a dance because they were practically able to read each others minds and always knew what the other was about to do. He needed this, though, to work himself beyond exhaustion, so he couldn't think and wouldn't dream; he figures she needs it too, even if she is currently kicking his ass. When her staff comes down, again, to sweep his legs out from under him, he lays panting on the bamboo floor. 

Heaving, Beth leans on her staff and looks down at him, “Two hours is my limit, Olle. When you're this off your game it's no fun.” Helping him up, she takes their weapons back to their place on the wall before following him into the locker room. 

Olle had started construction on the house before he ever went back to Afghanistan in 2005, by tearing down a group of six houses that sat, dilapidated, on a huge corner and having the property re-zoned as one lot. He built the house, four libraries and thirteen bedroom; able to sleep nearly forty people comfortably when fully furnished, as a replacement, for sorts, for the Men of Letters' Bunker. He had intended to, eventually, start training hunters again and knew he would need a place to do it. Construction finished in early 2009, and he was completely moved in by the end of August, but he had never really used much more of the house than his bedroom, the desk in the living room, and a very tiny portion of the kitchen. 

“When did you start using the locker room?” Olle asks as Beth strips down and turns the water on in the farthest of the five showers. 

“When Linda saw we had a sauna,” Beth says stepping under the water. 

Olle nods, pulling his clothes off and grabbing the empty stall next to her. “This is the third time,” he chuckles rinsing shampoo out of his hair, “that I've showered today.”

“Eh,” Beth says, smearing conditioner through her long hair, “Don't worry about it; just be sure to moisturize. Wanna go out for dinner? It's nearly nine already, but it's Friday; we could find a table somewhere.”

God, Olle has missed her, he realizes; they need each other. “Yeah,” he says, “sounds great! We can do the three course menu at The American.”

“We will have to take three other people with us,” Beth says. 

“We could go to Chaz,” Olle says then, stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel.

“Better,” she quips. Beth comes out of the shower then as well, hair wrapped in a towel, and looks at Olle's blistered, angry skin. “You could get him to heal them,” she says softly, looking down at her own white scars. 

Olle shakes his head, “I don't want him to see them.” Beth nods, knowing the only way Gabriel could heal these particular burns was if he touched them again. 

“Have we figured out, yet, why mine are already scared?” she asks wrapping a towel around herself to follow Olle upstairs. 

Olle heads back through the training room and the gym, toward the steps, “I think it's the tattoo. You said you didn't feel it, either,” Olle says stopping on the first floor to wait for her before heading for the second. “Believe me, I felt it.”

“So, he claimed all of Creation,” she says a little shocked. “Like the tattoos, I guess, then,” she says rubbing her chest through her towel. “Never going away.”

“Dean's has faded out to where you can't tell it was ever even there,” Olle says opening his bedroom door to let her in front of him. 

“Someone should really tell him what it means,” Beth says headed straight for the closet. 

“How well do you think our fearless hero would take to finding out the angel, literally, owns his soul?” Olle asks scrolling through open table. 

“Better, probably,” she says pulling on black lace underwear, “than he would to finding out how it happened.”

Olle laughs agreement, laying his phone down and starting to dress. When he is dressed, and Beth has just finished her hair and make-up, Olle takes in how much she has taken over his closet since he has been gone. “Did you buy the entire Christian Louboutin fall collection?” he asks laughing, he doesn't blame her, really, he is just curious.

“No,” she says like it should be obvious. Taking the pair of black pumps he is holding and slipping them on, she goes on, “Some of them are hideous, you know that.” 

Olle takes a moment, then, to admire her handy work. Her make-up is so subtle it is almost non-existent and her hair is twisted on the back of her head in a way he is sure he does not remember being able to do, but there it is. The long sleeve black dress scrubs the bottom of her thighs, but the back is open down to the curve of her firm, round ass; showing off the world-tree tattoo they share. With a long, appreciative look, Olle grabs both their coats, “Maybe you're right, maybe we are vain.” 

She laughs, grabbing a matching Louboutin bag and following him toward the garage, “Probably, but, honestly, I just need to get out more. This is the nicest thing I own.”

“It's pretty fucking nice,” Olle says helping her into her coat before pulling his own on. “I'm wearing Marc Jacobs, and it's three years old.”

“I got this on eBay for $95 after shipping,” she says sliding into the passenger side of the Jag. “You're the one who is a clothes whore.”

“So sayeth the shoe whore,” Olle says starting the car and pushing the garage door opener. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she says laughing easily. “I'm going to call Reiger and see if they can seat us at midnight.”

The rest of their night is full of easy, teasing banter, delicious food, lots of alcohol, and great music. They aren't foolish enough to believe one night of remembering who they are together is going to make anything easier, but it is time well spent because, for a while, it helps them forget that fact.


	12. Chapter 12

Olle rolls over, reaching out for Beth and pulling her into him. As they attempt to burrow into one another, trying to shield themselves from the horrendous amount of light coming through their windows, Olle is reminded once again of why he ended up back at home instead of the Bunker as Beth's diamond stud digs into the unhealed brand in the middle of his chest. Hissing, Olle and Beth pull apart at the same time; their sleepy cocoon destroyed because both of them are awake now. 

“Training?” he asks groggily. 

“Training,” she says resigned. 

“Wake everyone up,” he says stretching. “Might as well get everyone involved.”

**

Thirty minutes later, Olle is standing, barefooted, in the middle of the training floor with Lucifer. This is only the second time he has spared with the archangel, and he hopes it goes better this time. Lucifer had beaten him to a wheezing, dying heap on the floor, but not before triggering his own horrendous panic attack. The time he spent, though, at the Bunker, Olle hopes, will have helped; he had no problem going up against a dragon to protect Sam and Dean in Philly just a couple of weeks ago. 

Olle's train of thought is derailed when Beth tosses them both a Bo. Holding his out in front of him, Olle shakes his head, “You gave me one of yours.” Tossing it back, Beth sends him a longer one and the two warriors starts to circle each other. 

“The whole world can't always accommodate you, Ancestor,” the devil says with a smile. “You should learn to fight with a shorter stick.”

Before Olle can do more than chuckle, the angel is lunging for him.

An hour later, Olle isn't sure if Lucifer has made any improvements or not. The angel is pulling his punches, so to speak, and defending but taking absolutely no offensive stance after that first lung. On more than one occasion, Olle has left himself completely open and Lucifer has refused to take the bait. After a particularly blatant refusal to do more than defend himself, Olle stops and, looking at the angel curiously, asks, “What's up with you Luce?”

The archangel shrugs, following Olle to the edge of the room where they put their weapons away. “I'm just not feeling it today, I don't guess,” he answers meekly. 

“Uh, huh,” Olle responds skeptically. “Let's go talk,” Olle heads for the sauna in the back of the locker room. 

Olle goes in to turn on the gas and heat the stones, stripping down, he turns to Lucifer, “You think too much, as a general rule, Luce. So,” he says grabbing a huge towel and going inside to stretch out, “what has your head too full to fight?”

Lucifer follows him inside, clothes neatly folded on a bench outside, and stretches out on his own towel before he sighs, “Hurting, killing, fighting; it feels like the only thing I've ever been told to do, wanted to do. It was the thing I was made to do and I'm good at it,” Lucifer says honestly. “I'm just, I'm so fucking tired of it being all anybody ever expects me to be capable of.”

Laying on the bench above him, Olle rolls on his side to look down at the angel, “I'm sorry. I know I kept, keep, pushing you to train and telling you how important it is you be ready. I'm sure I make it sound like I only see you as another strong sword arm, another perfect soldier, but it isn't,” Olle finishes sincerely. “It may feel like that is all we do, all we have ever done, but it's not who we are, what we are.”

“What are we, then?” the angel wonders sadly. 

Olle smiles sitting up and Lucifer comes up to join him. Leaned against the wall, Olle thinks for a while before he answers. “I am a doctor. I am a scholar. I am a friend. I am a student. I have been a son and a daughter,” he chuckles. “A sister. A lover. We, each individual, is so much more than can be described in a few words. It matters more how you see yourself than how others see you. I am a soldier, and a hunter, but that is not all that I am. I am not a killer, not a monster, but I have been. You have to separate what you were from what you are and what you are from what you want to become.” 

Lucifer doesn't say anything, just sits thoughtfully at Olle's side. After a while, when Olle has taken all he can of the steam and the heat, when his brands are throbbing from it, he gets up and, turning at the door, says, “We can try again tomorrow. I'm sorry, but you have to be willing, because I know you're able, to defend yourself and those around you from what is coming. I need every available body, even the ones who don't want to fight; I am sorry.” Lucifer just smiles and nods before Olle leaves the room. 

**

Olle closes the door to the sauna and steps under the shower head directly in front of him, blasting cold water down the front of his body to ease the ache. Standing there, shivering and groaning, he reaches for the shampoo when he hears Gabriel's timid voice say, “I can heal them. Please let me heal them. It will take you weeks to heal, months maybe; an archangel has never branded anyone before so,” he trails off. 

Olle doesn't turn around, he freezes solid, afraid to move. “I didn't think you'd want to see them,” he says casually, but there is an undercurrent of anger. “I don't want you to see them,” he says willing himself to move, to start washing his hair. 

“Fuck Olle, of course I want to see them,” he says taking a step toward the big man, but he stops. “Just, let me do this for you. Please?” he asks walking up behind the big man. Olle nods once and Gabriel sighs his relief as he comes up to the man and, using his Grace to adjust his height, wraps himself around Olle's back and settles his hands over the brands. 

Both sigh, equal parts relief and agony, and Olle chuckles, “You're gonna get soaked.”

Gabriel smiles into the back of the big man's neck, “It won't matter.” There is a swell of Grace and, when the angel pulls away, short and dry again, it is done. 

Olle looks down at his body, the scars are so pale they blend almost perfectly into his complexion and the dark curling of body hair hides them from all but the most prying of eyes. “Thank you,” is all he says, but when he turns the angel is gone. It doesn't hurt, he thinks, as much as he wants it to but, as he warms up the water and finishes his shower, he figures that is probably a good thing. 

Later that night, while playing pool with Linda and Beth, while the angels watch Game of Thrones, Kevin looks up from Beth's laptop across the room and says, “Olle, I think I may have caught you a case.”

“Yeah,” the big man says still playing. “Let's hear it then kid.”

The prophet nods, “I was looking through the FBI database, we've been trying to replace all the known images of Sam and Dean, and I ran into a file earmarked as a possible copycat; they have tons of them, but this one looks like a kitsune. It's sloppy work too,” Kevin says shaking his head, “the thing must be itching to get caught.”

“Where is it?” Olle asks stopping what he is doing to go read over the ghost's shoulder. 

“Coeur D'Alene, Idaho,” Kevin says moving so Olle can sit and read. 

Olle gets a pit in his stomach when he sees it is on Interstate 90. He never could find Jacob Pond after Bobby told him what happened and he found Amy's body in that motel. Seems like he has done nothing but go around cleaning up their messes for a while now, one more added to list won't make much difference. “Hey Beth,” Olle says looking up at her with a grin, “wanna go to Idaho?”

“Sixteen-hundred miles on the back of the bike?” she asks. “Absolutely!” she grins at him. “I'll go throw some clothes in a bag and we need weapons.”

In less than a half-hour they are headed through the neighborhood to I-35 North.


	13. Chapter 13

Two days on the bike, Beth wrapped around him, they are both sore and cold, but Coeur D'Alene has an affordable motel right off the highway and a restaurant & distillery within walking distance. Riverstone Park was where the bodies were being found, and their restaurant just so happened to sit right at the edge of the small business development that surrounded a tiny man-made lake on the edge of the Spokane River. 

Beth had mentioned Jacob Pond to Olle while they were doing a routine salt-and-burn at the Martin and Mason Hotel in Deadwood yesterday afternoon; they didn't plan on it, but the ghost was wrecking havoc at the hotel and they couldn't sleep. That did put them in Coeur D'Alene about four hours later then they planned, though, so they decided, unless there was a fresh body when they got there, to wait until the next day to look around. Unfortunately, when they got to the restaurant, the police, and the coroner, were already there. 

“Fuck, man,” Olle says digging in his back pocket for his FBI badge as they both veer away from the restaurant toward the police tape. 

Beth pulls her badge out of her jacket pocket shaking her head, “I haven't faxed them our paperwork yet. I was gonna do that when we got back to the room.”

“Yeah, well,” Olle says getting a line jockey's attention, “Google and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram will still tell them we're FBI if they bother checking.”

“I'm sorry,” the officer says, “but you need to step away from the tape, please.”

Olle and Beth flash their badges. “Where is your officer in charge?” Beth asks. 

The guy stares at both their credentials for a minute before he says, “Wait here,” and walks off toward the group of people a few yards away. 

“Can I help you?” a tall, thin blond in her late forties asks coming over with the officer. 

“Ma'am,” Olle says handing her his badge. “I'm agent Davis. This is agent Castle,” he indicates Beth. “We just got into town. Actually, were set to give you guys a formal introduction tomorrow morning.”

“Detective Fogg,” she says giving Olle back his badge. “How can I help you? We've gotten no confirmation from Seattle, Portland, or Salt-Lake City that you, or anyone, was headed our way. I can't just let you potentially contaminate a crime scene; I'm sorry.” 

“We understand,” Beth says. “Just wanted to check it out. Is it another body? That's, what, seven now in as many weeks?” When the Detective nods, Beth goes on, “I'm sure their was just a bit of a delay in our paperwork and we will be able to sit down with you tomorrow and really get started.”

“I look forward to it agents,” the detective says. “Enjoy your meal.”

**

Beth pulls out her laptop when they get back to the room and sends the Coeur D'Alene police department official FBI paperwork, even the regional director would think he authorized their trip. “We need a rental car,” she says when she is finished and Olle has come out of the shower. 

Falling on the King-sized bed, he says, “Enterprise, if they have something I fit in.” 

“Done,” she says few minutes later, closing the laptop and heading for the shower. “We can pick it up first thing tomorrow; they open at eight.”

“You and Kevin are going to have to show me how you do all that,” he says rolling over to follow her path across the room to the bathroom door. 

“It's like resecting nerves,” she says. “It's all about pathways and locations and interference.”

Olle nods yawning, “It'll be easy, then.”

“Sure,” she says from the bathroom, voice muffled by the sound of her turning on the shower. “So is ritual human sacrifice.”

“With the proper planning,” Olle says seriously before rolling over to go to sleep. 

When Beth shuffles out of the bathroom and into bed, she wakes Olle with a disgruntle, “Need shorter hair.” 

He knows she wants to talk, and is using this as an easy opener. “You could cut it,” he says rolling over, watching her fight with it as she tries to get comfortable without either of them laying on, and pulling, it. 

“Then I have to either go through the effort of keeping it that way or the irritation of waiting for it to grow out long enough to do anything with again,” she says turning off the lamp and making her way into his arms in the dark. 

“It isn't like we can't afford you getting it cut every three weeks,” Olle says settling in comfortably. “What do you really want to talk about? You don't actually care about your hair.”

“Are we really going to kill this seventeen year old kid who, so far, has killed registered sex offenders who were all sentenced for crimes against children under five and a guy who beat his wife and broke his eight year old's arm last week? Kid's still in the hospital, had to have pins and screws put in, while the Mom said he fell down the stairs. The social services reports states there are no stairs for the kid fall down.”

“He's got a taste for killing now, Beth, and with creatures, that never goes away. He'll get hungry, or hurt, one day and it won't matter who he puts a knife to because they are food.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “But, when have we cared? It's the natural order.”

“It was the natural order, when the food knew it was food to things that looked like they do. Not anymore. Not for over a thousand years,” Olle says into the darkness. 

“Now I feel better and you feel worse,” she says noticing the tension in him now as he holds her gently. “I shouldn't have done that.”

Olle shrugs, making the effort to relax, “It could turn out to be someone else. Or something else entirely. Just go to sleep and we'll find out tomorrow.” Beth relaxes, closing her eyes and trying to get ready for sleep when Olle says, “It was a conversation we could have had alone, in hour head, or out loud together; either way, it would have happened. Don't worry about it.”


	14. Chapter 14

he next day, having received FBI paperwork, Detective Fogg is more than happy to have the help. Seven bodies, even if they were all horrible men, is still a problem. Plenty of evidence to suggest the bodies were all dumped, and DNA on all the victims is not helpful because the DNA tests 'corrupted with unknown elements' and the area is heavily trafficed so determining which of a dozen or more tire tracks and foot prints belong to the killer is next to impossible. Beth leaves Olle with the detective and examines the last three bodies at the morgue; pituitary glands all missing, victims died of blunt force trauma, with evidence at least a couple of them, including our victim from last night, tried to fight back. If tissue samples from the victim were any indication, Beth knew their perp would have scratches somewhere on his skin. 

Heading back to the police department, Beth finds Olle and Detective Fogg going over crime scene photos. “What did the coroner have to say?” Olle asks taking the preliminary report Beth hands him. 

“Seven men, all weighing in at about two bills, c.o.d. blunt force trauma on each one. Four of the seven fought back, or tried to, and the guy last night had enough tissue under his fingernails, he was fighting with someone before he died,” Beth says dropping down in a chair at their table and starting to look through the photos. “Besides criminal history,” Beth wonders, “is their anything else to connect our victims? Did they know each other? Live near each other? Go to support groups together? Any evidence they were involved in illegal activity together?”

Detective Fogg starts to talk, “Of the seven victims, four were in the National Sex Offenders Database, one had been tried and acquitted because the kid's parents wouldn't let them testify. One was a priest who had only just been accused, but there is a laundry list of potential victims who have already stepped forward. And Adams, from last night, had been in here a dozen times or more but we could never get anything to stick.” She shakes her head, “If I didn't know it was going to get worse, I'd say this guy was doing us a favor.”

Olle nods, reading the autopsy report, “Couer D'Alene is bound to run out of sex offenders and child abusers eventually.” 

“So,” Beth says hoping she just made a connection, “all the men, at one time or another, have passed through this building, have had their picture taken and posted on-line or printed in the blotter?”

Fogg gets defensive immediately, “You're not,” she steps up to loom over Beth's sitting form, “accusing a cop, here, are you?”

“A cop,” Beth says casually, unconcerned by the detective's actions, “wouldn't be this sloppy.”

“But,” Olle says, “these men, and the crimes they have been convicted or accused of, were public knowledge. Their victims would have been treated at the same hospital where Andrew Adams is currently recovering.” Olle stands to loom, as non-threateningly as possible, over Detective Fogg, “So the killer probably has access to this building, and information moving through it. The priest, his victims weren't made public. Adams, under investigation but not charged. The guy who was acquitted, the others, all moved through here for processing or parole purposes.”

“Who but a cop would have access, then?” Fogg asks backing out of Olle's space. “Jesus, maybe it is a cop!”

Just then, an officer sticks his head in the door, “Detective, your nephew is here to see you.” 

Before the detective can respond, a tall, blond kid comes through the door. “Hey Deb, can I borrow your car? I got a flat,” the kid says before he stops at the sight of Olle and Beth. 

Olle curses under his breath and stares down at Beth who just shakes her head; he is most definitely a kitsune. 

“Sorry,” he starts, “I didn't know you were with someone.” 

He turns to go, but the detective stops him, “What happened to your car Jake? It was fine last night.”

“Don't know,” he says easily, “I just came out to go to class and it was like that. I got a ride, but I'm gonna be late for work and Abbey can't take me.”

The detective digs her keys out of her pocket and hands them to him before saying, “I should be home tonight, please be there.” With a nod, Jake is gone. 

'How the fuck do I have such bad goddamn luck?' Olle wonders to himself. “So,” he says aloud, “you live with your nephew?”

“My brother died of a stroke, turned out to be a brain tumor, the day Jake was born” she says sitting back down. “Jake's mom died in a car accident when he was 12; he's been with me ever since.”

**

“They always kill the human fathers,” Beth says when she and Olle are alone, eating at Meltz Extreme Grilled Cheese. “We didn't even think of that!”

“If he likes his aunt,” Olle says, “I doubt he knows. Fuck! This is going to turn out so bad for us!”

“Is it Jake?” Beth has to ask. “Could it be some sick coincidence?”

Olle looks at her like she has lost her mind, “When have we ever been that lucky?”

She shrugs as their food comes to the table, “Isn't it about time our luck turns?”

“I'd rather gut this kid in front of his aunt and get lucky with Amara,” Olle says picking up his sandwich. 

Beth nods agreement as she starts to eat. She groans before Olle can even get a bit in his mouth and says, “Fuck! We are coming back here, often.” Once Olle tastes his food, he has to agree.

**

Later that night, Olle and Beth follow Detective Fogg home. Watching the house, they notice Jake leave after his aunt goes to bed. “We never should have taught them how safe the middle of the night was,” Beth says yawning as she starts the SUV. 

“They needed to eat and it was easier for the little ones to hunt at night,” Olle says with a reminiscent smile.

They follow Jake, in his aunt's white 2-door Eclipse, to the Kootenai Health Medical Center. When the boy parks in visitor parking, Beth turns to Olle, “Katie Huynh is their head of neuro. You can't go in there. If there is a security review, she'll recognize you.”

“Yeah, just keep your phone on,” Olle says. “If he leaves again, I'm not waiting for you.” Beth nods and follows Jake inside.


	15. Chapter 15

Beth follows the teenager through the Emergency room, flashing her badge to get past the front desk when the boy has an apparently plausible excuse. Upstairs, he visits Andrew Adams, not waking the child or his sleeping mother, before he heads downstairs again, through the classrooms and the cafeteria, to the morgue. 

Beth following closely, undetected, is more and more confused by the kid's behavior. She got checking on the Adams boy; if he thinks he is doing these men's victim's a service, it makes sense. But, he has no need to visit the morgue when his victims that are still there have already had their pituitary glands extracted. Once inside, Beth crouches in the dark behind a cabinet, thankful for her five-foot six-inches instead of Olle's added fourteen inches. 

Jake is careful, quiet, as he opens a drawer to pull the body out. He stands there for a long time, not speaking, before he closes the drawer and leaves. Beth fires off a quick text to Olle that he can leave her if he needs to, before she goes over to the wall of drawers and finds the one where the temperature is highest and opens it. “Fuck me!” Beth exclaims, slams the door, and takes off at a run. Pulling her phone from her pocket she calls Olle. Not giving him time to speak, she starts, “Stop him! I don't care what you have to do, grab him if he comes out without me.”

Making her way up the steps, she hears him in the stairwell, when Olle answers, “What's going on?”

“Dean told Bobby what he'd done, Bobby called us to ask for clean up, we salted and burned Amy's body. We looked all over, four towns in two states, for this kid, but never found him.” She spots him half-way down the hall as she comes through the fire door and slows to follow. “I just found her body in the morgue, with six little jars of pituitary gland.”

“Fuck! Is it her?” Olle wants to know. 

“It looked like it, but I'd like to have him tied up in the trunk of his aunt's car before I go back in and make sure,” she says following the kid out the Ambulance bay. 

“You got him?” Olle asks. 

“I got him,” Beth says before she hangs up her phone and pulls cuffs from a holster on the back of her belt. 

**

Olle watches from across the parking lot as Beth walks up to Jake and says something; she hits the kid's temple with an elbow before he even turns to look at her. She catches him as he falls and, once cuffed, tucks him into the trunk of Detective Fogg's Eclipse before jogging over to their rental. “How do we want to do this?” Beth asks. “Do I take her body? The trunk is full.”

“If he is trying to bring her back,” Olle says using the most likely scenario, “he got the idea, and the body, from someone and he has had help. We can't just leave the body there for whoever's helping him.” 

Beth nods, “Loading dock at the morgue, fifteen minutes.” She hands him the kid's keys and his phone before she jogs back inside. 

Parked outside the morgue, hidden behind a van, Olle goes through Jake's phone while he waits. No weird text messages, Tweets, e-mails, or Facebook posts; he throws it in the seat and figures he will let Beth work her hacker magic on it later. He wonders what the hell they are going to do with Jake once they have Amy's body. He has to be working with someone, or he has run into some very difficult magick all on his own; either way, they can't just keep the kid in the trunk. 

**

Beth gets back to the morgue and finds Amy's body exactly where it was before. Upon closer examination, though, it is not the child's dead mother, but a dead shifter. Beth sighs before carefully moving the body to a bodybag on a gurney and wheeling her out to a waiting Olle. 

“Shifter,” Beth says angrily when Olle gets out to open the back. Picking the body up to carry bridal style, Beth moves down the steps and around the van to put the body in the back. Olle goes over to grab the sheets and a blanket she took from the ER on her way back downstairs and covers the body. Beth ran the gurney back inside and grabbed the jars of pituitary before heading back out. 

“You get the car,” Olle says when her door shuts. “I'll follow you. There is that empty building just up the road, by the Outback.” Beth nods pulling Jake's keys and phone out from under her in the seat. 

**

Ten minutes later, Olle smacks the kid awake after tying him to an office chair in the empty real estate office. “Hey kid,” Olle barks. “Kid! Wake up!” 

Groggy and groaning, Jake come to confused before he realizes he is tied up. “Wha- Whoa! HEY! What's going on?” he demands looking around frightened.

“There we go,” Olle says cheerily. 

“Now,” Beth says rolling into view straddling a chair, “you're going to tell us what you're doing.”

“Who are you? Weren't you with my aunt this afternoon?” Jake asks still confused. 

“What are you Jake?” Beth asks. “What have you been doing that would attract people like us?” she says gesturing between her and Olle. 

“Hunters,” the kid sneers. “I haven't killed anybody! But, what, none of you seem to care; I'm a monster.”

“If you haven't,” Olle says thoughtfully, “you've sure made it look a whole lot like you did.”

“Does your aunt know what you are?” Beth wants to know. 

“You leave my aunt alone!” Jake yells. 

“That's a 'No',” Olle says emphatically, turning his head to look down at Beth from his looming position over Jake. Beth nods agreement and Olle continues, “I say we go tell her what little Jake has been up to.”

Beth nods while Jake starts to struggle against the rope and his cuffs, “I was looking for Dean Winchester,” Jake starts as Olle and Beth head for the door. 

Both stop and wait for Jake to continue before they return. 

“I was looking for Dean Winchester because he killed my mother,” Jake says. 

“Dean Winchester,” Beth says casually, “has killed a lot of mothers, boy. Why should yours be any different?”

“It was my fault!” he says. “It was my fault!”

“Okay, Jake,” Olle says quietly, “okay.” With a look at Beth she gets up and comes over while the big man goes to find his own chair. 

“How about we untie you, Jake, and you tell us everything, huh?” Beth asks pulling a knife from her boot. “And, then, we try to help you.”

“Who are you?” Jake asks as Beth cuts him loose. 

“I'm Beth, and that,” she points to the hulking man dropping in a chair beside them, “is my brother Olle.”

“Deb said you were FBI, are you really?” he wants to know rubbing the feeling back into his wrists as Beth puts her cuffs away. 

“Not FBI,” Olle says. “I'm a doctor.”

“I'm a chef, sort of,” Beth says dropping back in her seat. Despite cutting him free, both hunters are between Jake and the door with just a wall at his back. 

“Now,” Olle says, “what's going on?”

“When I was twelve, I got sick. Mom always tried to give me freshest ones, but I got sick anyway,” the kid says sadly. “She didn't have a choice,” he looks up between them, frantic. “She did it to save me!”

“I remember,” Olle says. “Drug dealers and pimps.”

“Exactly,” Jake says. “They were bad people! But Dean Winchester,” he sneers the name, “didn't care! He killed her, killed her right in front of me!”

“And you're coming up on eighteen, right?” Beth says. “So you decide, what, time hunt the greatest hunter to ever live?”

“He's a murderer!” Jake yells. 

“He wouldn't deny that,” Olle says calmly. “What happened when you went looking?”

“I knew a kid who said Sam and Dean had killed this kid, his girlfriend and his mom in Detroit. I heard about witch's in St. Louis and a whole bunch of just regular people in Shreveport earlier this year!” Jake exclaims. “He's the monster!”

“Okay kid, that's enough, you don't like him; think he's a killer. I get it,” Olle says. “What I'm not hearing is who's feeding you info, huh? What happened two months ago?”

“I made a deal with an angel,” Jake says triumphantly.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure what happened here. After it was done, when I went back and looked at it, I had no idea how to go back and fix it; so I just decided to push on and see what came of it.
> 
> You've all been warned, I have no idea what's going on. Everything that happens from here on out is just fallout.

“You did what?” Beth asks seriously. 

“My Mom, they are going to bring my Mom back,” He says seriously. “All I gotta do is help them do this spell.”

“What spell,” Olle wants to know, skeptical. 

“I didn't believe them at first, didn't believe they were angels,” Jake says. “Didn't believe in angels. But they brought me my Mom's body,” he says. 

Olle and Beth exchange a long look, their hearts breaking for this stupid little boy. “What happened then?” Beth wants to know. 

“They said they needed a sacrifice, 13 people, for a spell. If I agreed to give them the people, they'd give me my Mom back.”

“Who,” Olle needs to know, “are these angels? What are their names? How did you find them? How do you contact them?”

“I'm not telling you that!” Jake exclaims. “If I mess this up, I don't get my Mom back!”

“I'm not hunting angel's here, kid,” Olle says seriously. “That body, the one you've got hidden away in the morgue, that's not your mother!”

“What are you talking about, of course it is!” Jake stands up now, angry. “The angels brought her to me and told me to keep her safe until the spell was complete.”

Beth sighs, this kid is just naive. “Olle,” Beth pulls her phone out, turning to talk to him quietly. “I'm gonna call Baz, talk to Luce maybe, and see what they say. We've got to convince the kid somehow.” Olle nods and Beth gets up to go into another room. 

“Why are they giving you the pituitary glands?” Olle wants to know. “And why aren't you eating them?”

He gets shy now, meekly replying, “Mom'll have been dead six years. She'll need to eat when she gets back. I'm saving them for her.” Olle can't stand the thought of killing this kid; for one, Purgatory is going to eat him alive. “They gave them to me as a thank you,” Jake says then. 

“You're gonna have to give me more than that to go on here, Jake,” Olle says tiredly. 

**

Beth looks at her phone for a minute before deciding to call Gabriel instead of either of the others. When the angel picks up, she takes a deep breath and tries to sound normal, “Gabe, hey.” Nailed it, she thinks. 

“Beth,” Gabriel says slowly, “is everything okay?”

“We've butted up against a weird one here, Gabe,” Beth laughs, “Let me tell you.”

“Go ahead,” he says. 

When she finishes telling him everything that Jake told them, she waits for the archangel to say something. “Well?” She asks finally. 

“My brothers and sisters are nowhere near imaginative enough to do something as casually malicious as this,” Gabriel says finally. “The idea of a spell, though, worries me.” 

“Me too,” she says quietly.

“What spells can you think of that need this kind of juice? If they are beaten to death it could be ritual human sacrifice; could they build up power with thirteen individual sacrifices?” the angel wants to know.

“If it's a coven and each member needs the power of one sacrifice,” Beth thinks aloud, “it's possible.”

“Why would they need this kid? This has to be a con,” Gabriel muses. “They have to be waiting for something.”

In the middle of the angel's musing, it clicks for Beth and her voice takes an ominous tone, “I think I know what it is, what they are doing. This is bad Gabe, really bad. You need to start looking for your nephew, quietly.”

“They'd need a virgin, at least one,” Gabriel says. “They couldn't summon her into a tainted body.”

“Boy's a virgin if I ever saw one,” Beth says. “I gotta talk to Olle.”

“You're right,” Gabriel says quietly. “Luce told me this is what the dragons in Philly were trying to do.”

“I gotta go,” Beth says. “Just, none of you leave the house and don't tell him unless you find the boy. Then, tell me first.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gabriel says. “Call me, so I know what I need to do.”

**

Jake takes a long look at Olle before he sighs, “You're gonna kill me aren't you? Even if I tell you.”

“We're not going to kill you period,” Beth says coming back in the room to drop in her chair. “Just, tell me the names of the angels you made the deal with, Jake.” Beth and Olle listen as the kid rattles off a half dozen names of angels they know are dead, Balthazar and Gabriel among them. 

“Okay, okay,” Olle interrupts finally, “stop.”

“How do you get in touch with these angels?” Beth asks. 

“I did a spell,” Jake says, “I found it online.”

“And the angels came?” Olle asks.

The kid shakes his head, “One angel came, Gabriel, the archangel.” At his name said in close proximity to Olle and Beth, said, actual, archangel appears behind the kid but, with a nod from Olle, remains invisible. 

“Then what happened?” Beth wonders. It's like pulling teeth with this kid. 

“I told him I wanted Dean Winchester dead, because he killed my mother,” Jake says. “But the angel said he couldn't kill someone out of revenge. He said he would bring my mother back, though, if I helped the angels with their spell.”

“What's this spell supposed to do, exactly?” Beth asks. 

“They're angels,” Jake says. “Why does it matter?”

“You didn't ask them, did you?” Olle says, realization dawning. “This Gabriel,” he throws a placating look to the real one, “offered you your mother and you just gave them whatever they wanted! Beth lied,” he says maliciously, “I think I will kill you.”

Jake starts to back into the wall but Olle doesn't advance, Beth, however, diffuses the situation with her next question, “Did they tell you they were going to kill these people? How did you choose whose name to give them?”

“They said they needed sacrifices,” Jake starts. “I listen, everyday I listen to aunt Deb talk about the terrible things she sees and the men who get away. I did a search of registered sex offenders in Idaho and the priest, he was in the news; the guy who go acquitted too.”

“What about Adams?” Olle wants to know. 

“My girlfriend's Mom is a social worker,” Jake says. “I got his name from her case files when I heard her talking about the little boy.”

Everyone is satisfied with the kid's story, but they still need to know who, what, the fuck they are dealing with. Is it demons or witches or some other type of monster? Or, worse, rogue angels? 

“How do you contact the angels, Jake?” Beth asks softly. “How do they give you the pituitary glands?”

“I meet them, once a week,” the kid says. “I give them a name and they give me the pituitary gland.” 

“Where?” Olle asks.

“At school,” Jake says. “On Tuesdays, behind the gym, during lunch, before I leave to go to work.”

“So,” Olle says then, “on Tuesday, behind the gym, during lunch, before you leave for work, we are all going to wait on your angel friends.”

“It's that,” Beth says seriously, “or we leave your mother's body, seven pituitary glands, and your corpse in this building; setting it on fire as we leave.”

“Okay,” the kid agrees a lot more reluctantly than Beth and Olle think is sane. 

“Now,” Beth says, “we're going to take you home and, just in case you think about weaseling out of this deal of ours, we are going to keep your mother's body.”

“What? You can't!” he yells, head pivoting between them. “Where is she?”

“We can, and we are,” Olle says seriously. “Now, one last thing. Strip.”

“What!” Jake exclaims. 

“Come on, shirts off and pants around your ankles,” Olle says no nonsense. 

“No!” Jake says backing himself further into the wall, hands clutching his clothes. 

“Take your clothes off kid,” Olle says seriously, “so we can be sure you're not the killer.”

“Huh?” he asks confused now. 

“The last victim, Adams, had a lot of skin under his nails; like he was fighting something before he died,” Beth says. “My brother just wants to make sure that wasn't you. You'd have scratch marks. Drop trow so we can make sure you've been honest with us.”

The kid reluctantly agrees and Olle pulls a flashlight to inspect his skin before letting him get dressed again.


	17. Chapter 17

Beth follows Olle back to their hotel and, when he leaves on his bike to follow Jake home and stay with him, she takes the shifter's body back to the morgue. She is seriously considering reporting the hospital by the time she is done, because she had managed to steal, and return, a body no one even knows is there. 

Back at the motel, Gabriel, who had disappeared after Jake agreed to take his clothes off, is sitting at the table in their kitchenette, using Beth's laptop. “Your WiFi sucks,” the angel says when Beth pulls a beer from the refrigerator and drops across from him. “This place is smaller than the house, how does it have such good WiFi?”

“Magick,” Beth responds, turning up her bottle. 

The angel nods, sliding her the computer, “I think my nephew is in Australia.”

“Awesome,” she says staring at the screen. “Haven't been to Australia since...” She stops, knowing the last time wasn't important, but remembering the first time; right after Azazel spit her out of Hell and Gabriel came. 

The angel remembers too, finally saying, “Let me know what I need to do,” before he is gone. 

Beth refuses to cry into what is left of her beer before she takes a shower and tries to sleep. No Olle, no Balthazar, means the nightmares that have plagued them since Hell, since Purgatory, since The Mark, are unrelenting. 

**

The next day, Tuesday, Beth drags herself out of bed and into the shower before heading for the complimentary breakfast. Heading back to the room, to arm herself, Beth's phone rings, Olle. 

“The little bastard is trying to give me the slip,” Olle says before she can get out more than a danish muffled, “Hello.”

“I'm leaving in five,” Beth says swallowing, starting to run. “Where do you need me to meet you?”

“I've not lost him,” Olle says. “Looks like he is headed for the hospital. Fuck, should we have threatened his aunt?”

“Is she still at home?” Beth asks. “I'll grab her, make something up,” she has no idea what, “and send you a picture; if he think we have her he might be more cooperative.”

“Not yet,” Olle says exasperated. “Fuck! I told the dragons we'd kill her, not send her back to Purgatory, but actually kill her if she showed her face here again. She wasn't worried the last time, but if they found her she knows Gabe and Luce are alive and Michael is dead.”

“She can't be allowed out,” Beth says grabbing her weapons. “But, are we even sure that is what whoever this is, is doing?”

“We don't know anything right now except this kid is a moron!” Olle says. 

“I'm ready to leave,” she says sliding her boot knife home and picking up her angel blade to slide into her custom shoulder holster. “Where do I go?”

“Looks like he might, actually, be headed to school,” Olle says a little relieved. “Head for the aunt; I'll corner him, have him call her so he knows you're with her.”

“Okay,” Beth says walking out of their room. 

**

Detective Fogg accepts Beth's ridiculous lie about Olle having food poisoning; she said she left him in his room hugging the toilet, and the two start going through a list of possible witnesses and suspects who need to be interviewed. When they leave the station an hour later to go interview Andrew Adams and his mother, Beth snaps a picture of the detective getting in her rental car and sends it to Jake's phone. 

By lunch time, Beth has talked the detective into going to Cafe Carambola. As they are pulling away from the station, Detective Fogg's phone rings, “Hey Jake,” his aunt says happily into her iPhone. 

Beth can only hear one side of the conversation and curses not having an angel with her for eavesdropping purposes while she listens to the GPS tell her how to get to the restaurant. Their conversation is mundane; she asks how his day is going, if he is going to work, what time he think he will home, and answers a few questions about her day before they disconnect as Beth pulls into the parking lot of Carambola. 

“This place is great,” Detective Fogg says hoping out of the SUV. “You're going to love it!”

“Honestly,” Beth says closing her door, “I try not to eat at chain restaurants.” She grins, following Fogg inside, “I think that's how Olle got ill.” The women laugh and go enjoy their lunch; Beth waiting impatiently on confirmation Olle is both alright and has the information they need to end this.

**

Olle made sure Jake knew he was right on him all day and, when the kid came outside between first and second period, Olle grabbed him, slamming him against the brick building, “Did you try to ditch me this morning kid?” 

“What? No! Of course not!” he stammers, feet dangling nearly a foot off the ground so Olle can look him in the eye. “You told me to act normal, that's what I'm doing!” Olle nods, setting the kid down, and, after adjusting his clothes, he finally asks, “Where's your sister?”

Olle smiles an evil trickster's smile he learned from the best, “At the police station with your aunt,” he purrs, pulling the kid's phone out of his pocket and showing him the picture Beth sent earlier. “Just in case you thought about backing out of our little deal.”

“Leave her alone!” he kids growls, eyes flashing fox-like in his anger. 

“She'll be fine,” Olle assures him. “As long as you keep up your end of the bargain.” The big man steps away from the kitsune then and, walking away, calls over his shoulder, “I'll see you at lunch kid.” 

He hates threatening this kid, hates even pretending to threaten his aunt, but if these monsters pretending to be angels are trying to resurrect Eve, he will do what he has to to keep that bitch in Purgatory where she belongs.

**

When the lunch bell rings, Olle is waiting behind the gym, trying to hide his massive frame behind three rows of tackle dummies. What he isn't expecting, though, when Jake gets there, is a demon. Olle watches, trying to reorganize his thoughts, while the kid does exactly what he always does and exchanges a name for a pituitary gland. The demon, Gabriel, assures the boy of his mother's soon return and is gone again; the whole thing takes less than five minutes. 

“Well kid,” Olle says stepping out of hiding, “you've stuck your foot in it; that's for fucking sure!”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, tucking the plastic cup in his backpack. 

“That wasn't an angel,” Olle says going over to rub his hand through the dusting of sulfur left where the demon was standing. “You've made a deal with a demon Jake.” Olle stands, turning to face the kitsune while he dusts sulfur off his hands, “And I need to know exactly what spell you used to summon it.”

Jake just stands there, mouth open in shock, head shaking in denial.


	18. Chapter 18

“Call your aunt,” Olle says throwing the kid his phone. “Find out where they are, don't tell her anything.”

Jake obeys while Olle drags him by the bicep around the building and across the street to where he left his bike. When he hangs up, Jake takes the helmet Olle offers with a chuckle, “You realize cracking my head open won't actually kill me, right?”

Olle is done pretending to be a half dumb hunter; demons summoning Eve with human sacrifice has taken all the fun out of scaring this kid. “I know that a kitsune your size and age, should be able to do some serious damage to me and Beth easy, but you didn't even try. When was the last time you ate?” The kid doesn't answer, which is answer enough for Olle. Swinging his leg over the seat, Olle puts sunglasses on and says, “You got them killed, you shouldn't let it go to waste. Put the helmet on and let's go.”

**

Olle and Jake make it to the restaurant not long after Beth and the detective, both sliding into outside seats on the booth Beth and Debra were in. Olle drops a kiss to Beth's cheek and says, “This just got really, really bad.”

Detective Fogg looks at the two supposed FBI agents a little shocked, “What are you talking about? Jake?” she wonders looking between the three of them, wondering why her nephew came in with Olle, who she thought was sick with food poisoning. 

“Let's have lunch,” Olle says cutting the kid, and what looked to be a full confession, off. “I'm starving!”

“How bad?” Beth asks handing Olle her menu as the waitress returns with two drinks. 

“We need Crowley's number,” Olle responds before ordering his own drink and going back to the menu. 

“Fuck,” Beth mutters. 

The Detective looks between the other three and demands, “What is going on? Jake, why are you coming in here with him?”

“Jake,” Olle starts, taking Beth's drink casually, “where did you find that ritual? What did it entail? You need to tell your aunt what you did.”

The kid nods, nervous, before twisting in his seat to look at his aunt, “Deb,” he starts slowly, “I know I told you Mom died in a car accident, but that's not what happened. She was murdered.”

The detective looks at her nephew shocked, “What? Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't the police say anything? Is that why you had no idea where her body was? What's going on?” she asks desperately staring between the three of them. 

“Skip to the end here Jake,” Beth says seriously. “It's safer all around that way.”

Jake nods and, after they all order, starts again, “Anyway, I found this website that talked about finding justice.” Without missing a step, Beth pulls a tablet from her bag and hands it to the kid. Jake pulls up the website and tries to hand it back to Beth, but his aunt takes it first. 

“This is nonsense,” she says. “Rituals and magic, summoning and angel? Tell me you didn't try any of this bullshit!”

Beth takes the tablet and reads through the website, step by step instructions on how to summon a Crossroads' Demon all dressed up in Heavenly camouflage. “Son of a bitch,” she says handing Olle the tablet. “I'm gonna make this fucker wish he'd never crawled outta the Pit.”

“You didn't think this was sketchy at all?” Olle asks looking up at Jake. 

“If things like me are real, why not angels?” the kid wonders. 

Olle and Beth both laugh. “This is why you shouldn't have been raised by humans. This is why I looked fuckall everywhere for you when I found your mother's body,” Olle says sadly. 

“What?” he asks angry and confused. 

“When Dean left her there, you don't think he just left her, do you?” Beth asks. “He called a friend of his, who called Olle. We got there, she'd been gone maybe three hours. After we salted-and-burned the body, we looked everywhere for you.”

“We never though,” Olle says, “that you'd be with humans.”

Their food comes then, it looks good, but no one eats. “My father was human,” Jake says. “Why wouldn't I be with humans?”

“For a kitsune to have a baby with a human,” Beth says, “it's next to impossible. The human mothers always die, and so do the babies.”

“Human fathers, though,” Olle says finally starting to eat, “have to be killed when the child is born so the mother can feed from him specifically before she breast feeds the baby for the first time.”

“If the baby doesn't get the nutrients, the genetic material, of their human father,” Beth says quietly, sadly, “they die.”

“Those men your mother killed to save your life,” Olle says, “that wasn't the first time she'd killed.”

“Did you know any of that?” Beth asks quietly. From the look on the kid's face, he didn't. 

Jake is in shock, destroyed by what he just learned, but his aunt is incredulous, “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you even really FBI? What is going on here? Magic, talking about Jake like he isn't human, you're both out of your minds!”

“I'm not,” the boy says finally. “Aunt Deb, I'm not, I'm not human!” When he turns to look at his aunt, his eyes flash fox-like and the hand he reaches out to her is clawed. 

She recoils, trapped between her nephew and the wall, “What the Hell?” She gapes, frantically searching between the three of them for sanity, meaning and finding none. “What are you?” she asks her nephew, voice small, quiet, frightened. 

“Don't,” he is crying, “don't be afraid of me, please.”

Their hearts break for the boy, after everything they just told him and Olle has to say something, “Hey, it's okay Jake.” He reaches out his giant hand to the boy and takes his wrist, “Grab your bag and we can go to the bathroom. You'll feel better if you eat something and Beth can talk to your aunt.” The boy nods, rubbing his face with his free hand, and, bag slung over his shoulder, lets Olle led him to the men's room.


	19. Chapter 19

“So, what?” Detective Fogg wants to know once Olle and Jake disappear into the bathroom. “The X-Files are real? Or you're impersonating a Federal Agent.”

Beth chuckles, “Aliens aren't real.”

“But, but Jake?” the detective stammers. “His eyes, and, and his hand!”

Beth nods, “The boy's mother was a kitsune. It is a Japanese word, meaning fox. The mythology calls them spirits, but they aren't. As the boy ages, he can learn to do many things. Had Olle found him after his mother died, he would have been taken to a place where others of his kind could raise and teach him many things I'm sure even his mother didn't know.”

“But, you said,” she stops now, for a hard swallow and a long drink of water. Shaking, she continues, “You said the mother's feed on the human fathers. What did you mean? Did Amy, did she kill Brian?”

Beth shakes her head, hoping she conveys her uncertainty, “I don't know that for certain. You said he had a seizure, a brain tumor. If he was already dying, if he knew what she was, it is impossible to say; there are too many unknown factors.” Beth needs to make her understand the boy is exactly who she thought he was five minutes ago. “Jake is still Jake,” she tries. “He's made some bad choices, but what kid hasn't? I can understand him being afraid of telling you what he was. He came to you,” she says softly, “recovering from an illness that nearly killed him; he had just seen a man murder his mother because she did everything she could to try to save his life. You took him in, you loved him, and you raised him; why would he tell you? It could put you in danger. It could make you hate him, even try to kill him.”

The detective seems to calm somewhat at Beth's words. “You're right,” she says finally. “You're right. He needs me. What kind of mess has he gotten himself into?”

Beth smiles, glad, and notices Olle and Jake making their way back from the bathroom. 

Jake and Olle slide back into their seats and silence descends on the table as everyone eats. When Olle drops his credit card to pay for lunch, Detective Fogg looks at them and asks, “Are you going to tell me what's going on?”

“Not here,” Olle says seriously. “We can go back to our room, where it is safe.”

“Safe?” Jake asks. 

“Safe,” Beth repeats. “Let's go.”

**

Olle checks all the salt lines while Beth ushers Jake and his aunt to the kitchenette. Making coffee, she offers them a seat and pulls out her laptop. When Olle drops at the table as well, Beth starts talking, “The website you showed me, the ritual involved graveyard dirt, your photo, yarrow...”

“Where'd you get the black-cat bones?” Olle cuts in. 

“My girlfriend's cat, Sassy, died a last summer,” Jake says ashamed. 

“You put all these things in a tin box,” Beth continues, “and buried them at a crossroads on a Sunday during a Full Moon.” When Jake nods affirmation, Beth continues, “The Sunday and the Full Moon are immaterial, but it adds, I suppose, to the mystery.”

“You summoned a demon, Jake,” Olle says quietly. 

“What do you mean?” the kid looks up startled. 

“Those stories are just that, stories!” his aunt says, taking the offered coffee from Beth who sets sugar and half-and-half on the table. 

“An hour ago you'd've thought he was a myth too,” Olle says pointing at Jake. 

“But, a demon?” Jake says. “They're real?”

“And angels, and vampires, and werewolves, and ghosts, and dragons, and too many other things to think about,” Beth says sadly. 

“You're both crazy,” Deb says shaking her head. “But,” she goes on seriously, “I know what I saw. Jake is a kitsune, right? So, apparently demons are real. What happened? How do we fix it?”

“The demon did what it did Jake,” Olle says, “because you're not human.”

“Demons can't buy creature souls,” Beth says. “When you die, Jake, when your mother died, you don't go to Heaven or Hell.”

“Where else is there?” he asks. 

“Purgatory,” the hunters say in unison, like a sad sigh. 

“Demons can't affect Purgatory, can't get in or out, can't take anything out or put anything in,” Beth says.

“So,” Jake sighs, “so they can't bring my Mom back?”

“No they can't,” Olle says. 

“But, but what about her body?” Jake ask. “They gave me her body!”

“I wrapped your mother's body in a hotel sheet and put it in the trunk of my car,” Olle says sadly, “I drove to a cemetery just north of the motel and, in the woods behind it, dug a shallow grave. I filled it with dry leaves and twigs, put her in there, doused everything in gasoline, and set a match to it. When the fire burned out, I covered the body and left to search for you.”

“The body they gave you, Jake,” Beth says, “it's not your mother. It's a shapeshifter. I don't how they did it, but they killed a shifter while it looked like your mother and gave you the body as a promise.”

“How can you be so sure?” Jake asks. “How do you know?”

“I got a long look at the body,” Beth says. “I was following you last night. How do you think I grabbed you outside the hospital?”

“What?” his aunt wants to know. 

“I left the house last night, after you were asleep, and went to the hospital. That's where I put Mom's, what I thought was Mom's, body.” Jake looks miserable and Beth can't blame him; they are taking everything he thought he was getting away from him. 

“But,” his aunt says, “what, if it couldn't take his soul,” she shakes her head here like she is the one loosing her mind, “did the demon want in exchange for bringing Amy back?”

This part is tricky, Olle and Beth exchange long looks before Olle sits back and waits for Beth to start. The looks she gives him says it all, but she takes a deep breath and tries to piece together as much of the truth as won't send this woman screaming. “Demons offer you whatever you want, they can give you nearly anything. You give them your soul and they give you ten years of living with your heart's desire. I don't know if they were waiting for someone like Jake or they just took the opportunity and ran with it, but they were using him to gain power.”

“Power for what? How?” the detective asks. 

“Human sacrifice,” Olle says. “When we first got here, and realized what Jake was, we thought he was the killer.”

“What?” Deb exclaims. 

“We followed him last night, and took him from the hospital,” Beth says, “because we thought he was killing these men.”

“But,” she laughs shakily, “that's crazy! Right Jake? That's crazy!”

“To maintain their health,” Olle says, “kitsune need a steady diet of human pituitary glands.”

Jake looks down at the table as his aunt turns shocked eyes on him, “I haven't been feeding,” he says meekly. “Today, when Olle made me, was the first time I'd eaten in almost a year.”

“The break-ins,” his aunt says in realization, “at the morgue and the hospital and the funeral home right after you moved here.” The boy nods. “Beth said you came to me sick, why didn't you tell me?” she asks sadly. “We would have found a way! I would have helped you,” she reaches out and takes the boys hand. 

“Google helped him; in exchange for the names of thirteen people no one would miss, the boy made a deal to get his mother back,” Olle says. 

Pulling her nephew to her, she says, “You've messed up so bad here Jake. This is so bad. You know it's wrong, right? I know I taught you it was wrong!”

Crying, he shakes his head, “I know. I know it was wrong. I knew you'd hate me, but I just wanted her back so much!”

Hushing him gently, his aunt continues to hold him. “What do we do?” she asks. “How do I fix this?”

“At one time,” Olle asks, “how many different 'angels' appeared to you?”

“All thirteen of them,” Jake says. 

“And the name you gave them today?” Olle asks. “It was the one I told you to give them, right?”

The boy pulls away from his aunt and nods, “Dr. Mikhail Wallander, just like you said.”

Olle chuckles, “Perfect.”

“Who is that?” Detective Fogg asks. 

“Me,” Olle answers. 

“What?” she asks. “Won't that send them straight for you?”

“Exactly,” Olle says.


	20. Chapter 20

Olle is certain to spread his name all over town for the next three days. Friday afternoon he drags out the exact outfit he wore to Rosewood in Philly, after the mess with the dragons, and takes the rental car to the hospital. After checking with reception, he makes his way to the neurology department and stops outside Dr. Katie Huynh's office. As he is about to knock, the door opens and Katie steps out. 

“Mik?” she asks shocked to see her friend here, of all places. With a happy smile, she goes in for a shocked hug, “I thought you'd gone home to Finland?”

“Months ago,” he says returning her hug and the smile; it was nice to see someone who knew him that wasn't a hunter or an angel. “I'm traveling with a friend and we were passing through; I had some time and just wanted to see if I could catch you.”

“You almost didn't,” she laughs. “I was on my way home.”

“It's good I got here in time, then,” he says. 

“Wha- where are you staying? How long are you going to be here? We need to have dinner. Would you like to have dinner?” She rambles on and Olle just laughs, “Who are you with? Are you busy? It's so good to see you,” she finishes with a sigh. 

“I'm traveling with a friend from Chicago who is visiting with her sister. I have all night. I am not busy, and, if you have the time, I would love to have dinner.”

“All right then,” she says pulling out her cellphone and taking the big man's arm to lead him to the elevator. Calling her husband, Adam, to tell him she will be bringing home a guest, they part ways in the lobby and head for their vehicles. Olle waits by his rental for her blue BMW, so he can follow her home. 

**

After a few minutes of argument, Olle convinces Katie and Adam to bring their three daughters and head out for dinner, his treat. Tony's On the Lake was a great idea, Katie's girls loved Italian food and Olle suspected all the victims were killed somewhere near where their bodies were dumped. He hopes the demon will try to grab him as he is walking back to his rental after dinner. 

Just after handing over his credit card, though, a phone call interrupts him and, when he see it is Dean, steps outside to pick up. “Hello?” Olle says into the phone. 

“Olle, man, where are you?” Dean's deep voice resonates through the phone. 

“I told Cas, I caught a case. Well, that led to another case. I'm in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho hunting a Crossroads Demon.”

“Fuck Olle, why didn't you call me?” Dean asks angrily. “Christ, I gotta worry about you and Sammy now.”

“Sam?” Olle asks turning from the crowd around the patio to walk toward the walk-in freezer behind the restaurant. 

“Yeah, man,” Dean groans. “He was talking about wanting to go back to Hell, talk to Lucifer in the Cage and I was dead set against it!”

“Of course you were! That's fucking insane!” Olle says seriously. 

“Exactly!” Dean says. “But he took off last night,”

“Did he take Baby?” Olle cuts in.

Dean huffs, “He's not that stupid. But he's gone. All I got was a damn note telling me he went looking for answers!”

“Two days, Dean,” Olle says. “Give me two days and I'll be back. When we find him,” Olle says seriously, “you can hit him first.”

Whatever Dean said next, though, is lost on Olle as the world goes black.


	21. Chapter 21

Olle comes to in a dark room, bleeding, a lot, from a small cut on his head. “Fuck,” Olle groans in actual pain. Silently, though, he prays, “Gabe, I need two things. First, tell Beth they grabbed me and make sure Katie and her family are okay. Second, Sam has disappeared on Dean, looking for answers about his visions. Yes, I know that's my fault, sort of, but just find him and don't fight with Luce about it. Thanks.”

In an instant, Balthazar is standing right in front of him, “Gabriel said you needed something? Oh,” he says looking around, “you're bleeding.” With a snap Olle is no long injured or tied to a chair. The angel disappears for a few seconds before popping back up while Olle rubs feeling back into his hands, “thirteen demons on the other side of that door,” he points to the area of light seeping around the bottom of the door. “Your weapons are on a table six feet to your left, immediately out the door. Would you like to borrow an angel blade from me?”

“Actually, no,” Olle says pulling a push knife out of the bottom of his boot. “I'm going to play this out. You need to go, though, I'm about to seal the room.” With a nod, the angel is gone and Olle wipes blood off his head and face to draw on the walls before he has to cut a small gash on his arm to finish the window and the door. 

**

Sealing the room isn't difficult, when something is written with intent and the power of blood, of sacrificing your blood, is used to add to the intent, the words could be gibberish and it wouldn't matter because the intent is what makes it work. So, Olle uses Enochian to make sure nothing, but him, that enters the room can leave it again without his consent. For safety's sake, he adds a silencing sigil rendering the room, and all who enter, mute. Last, but not least, he uses the knife and scratches a Devil's Trap in front of the door. 

One by one, twelve demons wonder into the room looking for the ones that came before. Olle pulls each one out of the trap and pushes them across the room, staying just inside the circle so they cannot attack him. The silence of it all would be unnerving, seeing the demons scream and rant while hearing nothing, but the sigil doesn't block any surrounding noise; Olle can still hear the demons on the other side of the door, traffic outside, and other ambient sound. He finds it almost comforting, but that unnerves him because this is how he worked in Hell; utter silence, soundtracked by the surrounding terror. 

Stepping outside the door, finally, Olle sees a man, much smaller than him, with dark caramel colored skin, green eyes and mahogany colored hair. The first thing he does is side-eye his weapons, calculating what he is willing to lose trying to get to them, and decides to indulge the demon in a little monologue-ing before he risks losing anything precious to him; like his pulse. 

“You do know, hunter,” the demon sneers, “the first thing I'm going to do, after I peel all your skin off, is find that little kitsune and do the same to him, and his aunt.”

Olle shrugs, “The kid is dumb as a post and the cop is a liability now, she knows I'm a hunter.”

“Ha,” the thing laughs, “are you trying to tell me you don't care?”

Olle moves away from his weapons, as far as he can tell all of the people these demons are possessing are still alive. Mass exorcism seems the way to go here, but he needs information first. If Crowley is behind this, Olle will find Sam and take him into Hell himself; ripping it all down a piece at a time before he kills the Demon King of Hell in the slowest way he can contrive. 

“What are you even doing here, man?” Olle asks suddenly, circling counter-clockwise around the room toward the alter they are using. “The kitsune doesn't have a soul you can buy, why put him through all this? It can't be that fun for you; it's taking a long fucking time.”

The demon shrugs, “It's not fun, at all, but human sacrifice is complicated. I need the power and I need a virgin whose soul will descend into Purgatory upon their death.”

“So the shifter you killed?” Olle asks. 

“Common whore, picked her up in Chicago and paid the extra hundred for her to shift before I stabbed her,” he says casually. 

At least now Olle knows where she belongs and he can get her home. “Does Crowley know what you're doing?” he asks curious. “Didn't he go through all this once? Backfired pretty awesomely on him if memory serves.”

The demon sneers, “Crowley, that pathetic, self-hating son of a bitch! He let Amara consume legions of us! His head is so far up Dean Winchester's ass it's a wonder he can speak at all! And his mother! His actual human mother!” The demon spits the word human like it is the worst possible thing you could be. “With Eve's help, we can stop the Darkness! I'm going to show the ranks of Hell who should be in power!”

Olle sees what is going on now and has to wonder, “How old are you?” He has made is way to the alter and sees magick and power much, much older and stronger than anything he has witnessed in a long, long time. “Who broke you little demon? Was it Alistair?”

The demon laughs, great amused huffs until the meatsuit has to double over to breathe, “Alistair was a child and a fool. He may have worked the rack for over 600,000 years, but he never even came close to my father.”

Olle gets a sick pit in his stomach at the fact that it is true; Azazel told him Alistair was lacking by comparison. Even Alistair admitted he never quite figured out how to do it the way Olle did; make them hurt, but make them grateful for it too. All of Hell bowed down at Alistair's feet because all who came after had never seen anything like him, but those millions who came before, knew. Olle thought Crowley had killed them all when he obliterated the Fallen; apparently he missed some. He can work this to his advantage, maybe, and terrify the thing in front of him. 

Olle's whole demeanor changes, putting on the skin of a man he has refused to even think about in five thousand years. He, somehow, seems to get even bigger, more physically imposing, and his voice deepens to a thick gravel pitch that seems to echo when he speaks. This is all accomplished as he moves further around the room, giving the demon nowhere to run but through the door Olle came out of. “What's your name little demon?” he asks almost kindly. He smiles a feral malicious grin, advancing on his prey to run an almost loving hand down his face and neck, “I never let any of you forget your name. What was it?” he barks. 

The horror of it all is that Olle will remember every detail of what he did to this soul as soon as the creature tells him his name, but his own suffering is preferable to Eve landing here and finding her mother. “Sargon,” the demon whispers, terrified, as it backs toward the door Olle closed behind himself when he came into the room. 

Disgust nearly overwhelms him as memory floods his brain. Olle's desire to put this poor creature out of its misery is almost too much to contain, but he focuses on the skin he is wearing now, as constricting as it may be, and he laughs. It is a hollow, mirthless, terrifying sound and it makes the demon back closer to the door. “I remember you little Sargon,” he say happily, like finding a long lost and beloved toy. “You screamed and screamed the first time I peeled all your skin off; do you remember?” The demon is ashen, terrified into silence, and backed into the door. Olle advances, the door pulls open so he knows he has it right where he needs it. “Do you remember the day you rose for me?” his voice is filled with pride and he has to bite back bile. “You wept that whole day, but you didn't scream, didn't thrash. It was the first time I got all your skin off in one piece! You were so proud of yourself, you rose for me then!” Olle smiles, kindly, and reaches out to caress the demon's face, “You were so good! You picked up my filet knife,” he goes over to the table and grabs his angel blade, “and started in on your first soul refusing to let me put you back together; wanting to show everyone how good you were for me!” 

The demon is crying now, silently, sliding down to the floor, pulling knees to chest and hugging tightly. “Please don't,” he whispers, barely audible. “You can't be him, you can't be. What do you want?” he looks terrified, huge eyes up at Olle and the immortal knows he has him. The demon would lay siege to Heave single-handedly if Olle asked him to; and he would be happy about it. 

“Tell me, Sargon, how many of you, of my children, are left in Hell? Do you know?” Olle wonders thoughtfully. 

“There are thousands of us My Most Venerated Lord and Master,” the demon answers with Olle's title in a language not spoke on Earth in over seven thousand years, and it nearly makes him wretch. The title was given to him by Azazel and it was how even the demon addressed him in Hell, so others would fear and obey him. It worked in the beginning, but, after a while, he no longer needed it. His children, the demons he made, used it because he couldn't stand the sound of Father falling from their grotesque mouths with such loving devotion.

“Are all of you here, now, mine?” Olle wants to know as he looks down lovingly at the demon, who hasn't been told to rise so refuses to move or even look up at Olle. 

“Yes My Most Venerated Lord and Master, we are all yours.” The demon won't stop crying and Olle feels like he is going to lose himself to the thing he was before if he has to keep this up much longer. 

“How many more of you are there out there right now trying to do something like this?”

“The others have forgotten what it was like before Alistair, before Crowley. They refused to rally behind me unless I could summon Eve, My Most Venerated Lord and Master.”

Olle is satisfied with that information, so he reaches out to the demon, “Give me your phone Sargon, I want to talk to Crowley.” Without question, the demon pulls up Crowley's number before handing Olle his phone. The big man puts the phone in his pocket and reaches out his hand; lifting the demon to his feet, he pulls open the door and pushes him inside before closing it and sliding to the floor in a heap of soul wracking sobs.


	22. Chapter 22

Olle reaches out, hyperventilating he is crying so hard, and prays to Lucifer because Gabriel cannot see him like this and he would die, permanently, before he let Beth suffer an instant of this. “Lucifer, please, please, please. Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer,” all silently screamed into the ether; Olle can't stop repeating it over and over even when the devil appears right in front of him. 

Lucifer looks around for imminent threat, but finds none and, so, drops to the floor to pull the bigger man into his arms, back to chest, like Olle had comforted him in the past. He has no idea what is going on, or why Olle is in such a terrible state. Rocking the big man side to side, humming quiet soothing noise, like Olle did for him in Hell, Lucifer senses the demons inside the room behind him and the power radiating off the alter across the room. “What happened here?” he asks quietly. 

Olle still can't seem to speak, but the angel gets a flash of everything that happened since Olle opened his eyes bleeding and tied to a chair. Lucifer tenses up for a moment as Olle's memories of everything he had done to Sargon flashed through his mind, and he is overwhelmed by the same sickening nausea Olle was struck with while the rest of the scene played out in his head; ending with Olle sobbing and praying, curled on the floor where Lucifer found him. 

“I'm no longer a threat to you Olle,” Lucifer croons quietly. “Azazel is dead. Alistair has been put to rest. The apocalypse is over. None of it can touch you anymore.” As the devil speaks, he uses the full body contact they have to wash Grace through the immortal and calm his nerves, healing what he can of what is broken. 

Olle finally relaxes fully against Lucifer and, after a few deep, calming breaths, says, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” the angel responds, not letting him go. “Why didn't Gabriel take this all away from you?” he asks. 

“It is part of the curse,” Olle sighs sadly. “He tried, I think, but I can't forget anything so it didn't work.”

“Do you think Father knew? Holding you in his hands, putting you back together from what Amara had done to you, do you think he knew all of this would happen?” Lucifer wants to know as he sits, still hugging Olle around the waist. 

Olle tries to lean back, head on Lucifer's shoulder, but he misses and bumps the door instead. Laughing quietly at the image they probably made, he thinks for a moment before he answers, “Julia wanted to be a writer, her whole life she wrote. Everything I ever put into words was terrible, but I had a plan for it. I knew the beginning, where I wanted things to start, and I knew the end, where I wanted everyone to stop. My problem was always the middle parts. I had trouble reconciling where my characters went with where I wanted them to be. They live and breathe while you write them and they make choices, sometimes by accident or in the spur of the moment, and they head in directions you don't know how to pull them back from.”

“You think Dad knew the beginning: save this thing, and knew the end: whatever it is, but the middle is a mystery to him?” Lucifer wants to know. 

Olle sort of nods his whole body and says, “Free-will in action.”

“Son of a bitch!” the archangel swears. “I'd never thought of it, of Him, like that. I'd never thought he had no control over it.”

“I often wonder if that isn't why He left. He may know the end, but what parent wants to watch their child suffer in the mean time?” Olle muses. Lucifer nods, thoughtful, and Olle disentangles himself from the devil to stand. “You need to get out of here so I can call Crowley,” Olle say pulling Sargon's phone out of his pocket. 

“What are you going to do about the demons?” he asks standing. 

“I'm on this weird kick where I want the people to live, so I'll cut a deal with Crowley I guess,” Olle stretches. “He can have the demons but I get the people and I'll leave him alone if he promises to hunt and kill all of my children left in Hell.”

Lucifer shakes his head watching Olle start to re-arm himself, “It's a good plan. You could always threaten him with throwing him in the Cage; he thinks it's still intact.”

Olle notices he doesn't mention his brother's name, but he nods, “I was trying that when he cursed me. He looked really fucking frightened of it, to be honest. I don't know how it's going play out; he could gut me.” Olle slides his final knife home and, double checking his guns are all loaded, looks at Lucifer, “Thank you for coming. Thank you for helping me through that.” 

The sincerity in his voice makes Lucifer blush, “I already told you, you're welcome. It is the least I could do after everything I've done.” With a smile from Olle and a nod from both men, Lucifer leaves. 

Picking up the phone, Olle pushes the call button and waits for Crowley to pick up. “Sargon, have you found Amara yet?”

Olle laughs, “He hasn't Crowley. We need to talk.”

“Olle?” the King of Hell asks a little confused. With the blink of an eye the red eyed demon is standing in front of the immortal, “What's going on?”

Olle puts the phone in his pocket and goes over to pick up a piece of human leather from the alter, symbols in an ancient language burned onto the page. “You missed some of my children, Crowley, when you enacted your little coup. Part of me turning a blind eye was supposed to be their complete annihilation,” Olle says seriously as he flings the spell in the demon's face. 

Pulling the leather off where Olle draped it over his head, Crowley reads the spell before he says, “How many did I miss? Where is Sargon?”

“In there,” Olle gestures to the door with his head. “But,” he emphasizes, “you take the demons and I keep the meatsuits; if they are alive they stay alive.”

“Really?” he asks skeptically. 

Olle nods, smirking, “It's that, or mass exorcism, and you can hunt them down yourself.”

“Fine,” he grouses. “Give them to me.”

“You kill them, Crowley, every last one of them,” he says adamantly. “And I sure as fuck don't want to know what you do to them before, understand me?” 

A lazy nod satisfies Olle and he goes over to the door; a few mumbled words of Enochian and the blood binding on the door vanishes, along with the silence sigil. Opening the door, Oll shoves Sargon into the room as a cacophony of noise erupts from the demons behind him. 

Olle marches into the room, obscuring Crowley from view, and asks, “Which one of you said they were Gabriel?” Olle nearly sighs with relief when it isn't Sargon who steps forward, but a tall blond man with green eyes. “The meatsuit,” Olle asks, “who is he?”

Sargon answers when the demon looks at him incredulous, “He was a man named Michael, My Most Venerated Lord and Master.” At the use of Olle's title the room goes silent as the demons all exchange shocked, frightened looks. “He was with the whore when I found her.”

“Pimp or John? Is he human?” he needs to know. 

“Pimp, My Most Venerated Lord and Master, human.” Sargon answers quickly. 

With a decisive nod, Olle turns to Crowley, “I keep this one to take the wrap for the murders and you get the rest.”

Crowley agrees with a nods and snaps, forcing a mass exodus of demons from their meatsuits. The swirling, writhing mass of thick black smoke then descends through the floor before it disappears. Crowley turns to Olle and grins, “Be seein' you Ancestor,” he quips before he is gone. 

Olle now has one demon and twelve passed out, dazed, humans to handle. The first thing he does is pull the demon into the Devil's Trap and cuff his hands behind his back. Pulling out his phone, he calls Beth, “Hey, I have no idea where I am, but can you come get me?”

She laughs into the phone and appears next to him with Balthazar in tow.


	23. Chapter 23

Once the angel has determined none of the humans are injured and returned them to their homes, memories only slightly modified, he looks at the demon, “Who's this handsome fellow?”

“There is no way you are who he thought you were,” the demon sneers at Olle; the first words he had spoken. 

Olle chuckles, “You'd be surprised, now be quiet before I cut out your tongue!” 

“Hey guys,” Beth calls from the other room. 

“Yes my dear?” Balthazar asks appearing by her side. 

“If we're taking grumpy over there and making him take the wrap for all these murders, we gotta do some serious clean up on this alter,” Beth says. 

“I know,” Olle says coming up behind her, “it's dangerous. Baz,” Olle says turning to the angel, “I need one more thing from you, please.” A questioning look is all the motivation he needs, “There is a body at the morgue with six jars of pituitary gland; bring me the pituitary glands and take the body home with you; you can put her in the dining room.” Without a word, the angel is gone and, seconds later, six jars appear on the table where Olle's weapons were earlier. 

“Now what?” Beth asks dumping some of the more dangerous herbs and a few of the scribbled spells into the copper offering bowl and dumping slat and lighter fluid from her pockets on them before setting them on fire. “The rest of it,” she says picking up a few stones and a couple of pieces of human leather to stuff in her pockets for safe keeping, “should be fine.” 

“Now, we grab that Lawrence guy who's name Jake was going to give them and call the police. When we get here, evidence everywhere, and demon number twelve's got a knife to his throat, we shoot him; a lot. He pulls a knife when you or I go in to check his vitals and we struggle, he gets the knife.” Olle knows he is making it sound a lot easier than it is going to be, but with Detective Fogg's help it shouldn't be that difficult. 

“I still think it is complicated,” Beth says. 

“It's not brain surgery,” Olle jokes; Beth giving him a scathing look, considering. “Come on, the soul in there was a pimp who, for an extra hundred, made his shifters turn into whoever their John wanted them to be. The thing in there,” Olle stops, doesn't want her to know, “it's gotta go, Beth. We can't give it back to Crowley, it's seen Baz.”

“Okay,” she says with a resigned nod. “You're right.”

**

By noon the next day, Olle is signing out of the hospital and released from police custody; having his gun and badge returned to him and the death of one Michael Webbly ruled a clean kill by the Idaho State Police. 

“Was it worth it?” Beth asked when she picked him up to head back to their room. 

“What, this?” Olle asks moving at a steady limp from the wheelchair to the car. “Totally,” he assures her once his seat-belt is buckled. 

“How did he get the better of you, even for a second?” Beth asks. 

The seventy-eight stitches when Olle finally sent the Emergency Room Doctor away and did himself, were the result of attempting to fight off the demon and the man they were using as a decoy. The demon had taken three bullets already, but charged Olle when he attempted to pull the hostage to safety; the hostage pulled Olle's boot knife to go for the demon and, in the struggle, Olle was injured; by the hostage. The entire side of Olle's right thigh, from hip to knee, was throbbing and he knew he had to ride his bike back to Lebanon as soon as possible; that was not going to be enjoyable. 

Back at the hotel, Jake and his aunt were waiting for them. Beth gave Jake the harvested pituitary glands and the phone number for a friend of Olle's within the Chicago Families. He could help Jake find food as well as other kitsunes to help him learn more about himself and what he could, potentially, one day be capable of. Detective Fogg was also given their number in case she ever came across something she wasn't quite sure about and needed a second opinion on. 

Before they leave, Olle pulls Jake down at the table and, handing him a tablet, tells him, “I want you to take this, there is a series of books I want you to read. They aren't very well written, some are quite bad and you can skip Bugs altogether if you want, but read the rest of them; promise me.” When the boy nods, looking down at the tablet, Olle continues, “If you still hate Dean at the end of them, if you don't understand why he did what he did, you call me and Dean and I will come see you. I'm not going to tell you he will ever be sorry for what he did, but I can tell you he may think a little differently now, about whether or not he went about it the right way.”

“Okay,” Jake says sincerely, “I promise.”

As Jake is standing, Gabriel appears in the middle of the room saying, “Luce just told me you freaked out and he had to sit with you?” The whole room is silent, Jake and his aunt shocked by the man appearing out of thin air, Beth curious about Olle's freak out, and the big man just deciding to sit and take it. The angel looks at Olle hard for a second before going on, “And you're injured! Why didn't you pray?” 

With a snap Olle's thigh is healed and the doctor looks between the angel and the kitsune and the detective, “Jake, Deb, this is the real archangel Gabriel. Gabe, this is Jake and his aunt Detective Debra Fogg.”

“Pleasure,” the angel snarks. “What's up with you, huh?” he asks Olle seriously, pulling a chair out to sit almost between his legs at the table. 

“Did you find Sam?” Olle asks, trying to avoid this conversation; especially in front of strangers. 

Gabriel shakes off the question, “He's fine, he's in NOLA hunting down every hoodoo woman and soothsayer he can find; looking for answers and finding none. I've got Sammy, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Angels curse?” Jake asks looking form Gabriel to Beth incredulous. 

Beth just smiles and, taking both their arms, leads their guests outside.


	24. Chapter 24

Gabriel sits, staring Olle down, waiting for an answer; needing to know what happened. “I spent five thousand years running from Azazel,” Olle says finally, when Gabriel refuses to back down. “Even then, though, I did my damnedest not to think about why, what I'd done.” 

“I know,” Gabriel says, voice tight, hand rubbing up Olle's now healed thigh. 

“Those thirteen demons,” he is starting to cry again, “I promised Crowley I'd let him go, turn a blind eye to his hostile take-over of Hell, if he made sure to obliterate each and every one of my creations.” Wiping his eyes and sniffling, he says, “I guess he missed a few. When I realized, I knew he was too old, too strong, and I was completely unarmed; fear was the only way. But, remembering; pulling on that guise again, even for a few moments,” Olle trails off as Gabriel's hand clenches on the hunter's thigh. “I don't want Beth to know,” he says quietly, eyes huge, face tear tracked, voice barely a frightened whisper. 

Gabriel is not sure he can do this, not sure he should have come at all; watching Olle suffer makes him feel like a knife is twisting in his heart and his Grace. Knowing there is nothing he can do, knowing he is no longer allowed to offer comfort, eats at him. He was just angry and hurt that Olle prayed to Lucifer instead of him, but, he thinks, that is something he is probably going to have to get use to from now on. 

“Can you just go stay with Sammy,” Olle says tiredly. “Please? Dean called worried about him and I don't want anything to happen to him.”

The tone of Olle's voice when he talks about Sam piques Gabriel's interest, but he just says, “Sure Olle, if that's what you want.” With a thought, Olle is cleaned up and you can't tell he has been crying. “I mean,” the angel cannot help himself; he always opens his mouth and inserts his foot, “you sound awfully worried about him.”

The half risen position Olle is in deflates to an uncomfortable slump in his chair as he looks at Gabriel for a long minute before he sighs, “I know none of them told you, but they keep telling me I need to. Are you grasping at straws or did you figure it out?”

It takes Gabriel a minute for Olle's meaning to sink in. When it does, he leans back in his chair with a scoff, trying to put on his best Trickster face; it is useless, though, Olle knows all his faces. “Huh,” he tries to smile but has no idea how it comes out, “no more sitting down to make out, then; am I right?”

Olle shakes his head, not fooled for an instant, “It's not like that Gabe, not by a long shot, nowhere near.”

“But,” the angel says seriously now, “but you want it?”

“It's hard to be around him and not, Gabe,” Olle says honestly. “He is smart and funny and sexy and so full of life and light and hope and, for some unknown reason, he still has faith! Faith in God! Faith in Dean! Faith in himself! Faith in Humanity and Creation!” 

“No,” the angel smiles sadly, “I get it; I do. Hell, I thought about it myself in past. That first time we met, the way his soul looks and feels; even now. The way he looked at me,” he shakes his head in understanding. “I get it, I do. Good luck with that,” he says standing with a mumbled, “I gotta go check on him anyway, later.” 

Gabriel is gone before Olle can say another word, but that is okay because he has no idea what he would have said. 

**

When Beth comes back, Jake and his aunt long gone, she plops in the seat Gabriel just vacated, “You freaked out?”

Olle shakes his head, getting up to start packing, “It was nothing important and absolutely nothing I want to talk to you about.”

“So all those demons were ours, huh?” she says casually. “I thought Crowley was supposed to kill them all for us?”

“Yeah, well,” Olle says shoving wadded up jeans in a backpack, “he missed a few.”

“Okay,” she says casually, “I'm not asking for anything else. But,” she comes up behind him, arms smoothing up his back, “you don't have to stand there and suffer alone.”

“But I do,” Olle says not moving, “we do. You know that. And,” he says turning to take her hands and look down into her face, “if I can keep you from feeling it, I will. Please let me,” he whispers cupping her face gently and squeezing her hand. 

Beth leans into the touch and shakes her head, “Okay, okay.”

They pack, return the rental car, and load up Olle's bike in silence but, right before they are set to leave, Beth says, “I'm going to get Baz to come get me and drop you in Kansas. You said Sam was missing, what's going on?”

Olle shakes his head, dropping down on the bike to look up at her, “He wants answers about the visions Lucifer sent him. He was talking about the Cage, but he and Dean fought and the kid went looking on his own. Gabe found him; I'm not worried.”

“Still, Dean has to be losing his shit,” Beth says. “It's been long enough for you show back up the Bunker, hasn't it?” Olle nods, so she prays, “Baz, babe, can we get a lift? Olle to Lebanon and I wanna come home.” 

“Make sure you get the girl's body back to David Lassiter in Chicago,” Olle says. “I'll call Gideon as soon as I can. They may send someone for it; I'll let you know.” 

Beth nods but, before she can reply, Olle finds himself alone, on the road headed to the Bunker's garage.


	25. Chapter 25

After a brief conversation with Gideon, followed by a slightly longer one with David, Olle decides to dial Sam's number before making his way the mile or so to the Bunker's garage entrance.

Thinking he would get voicemail, Olle is surprised when Sam answers, “Hello,” the hunter's deep mellow voice intones. 

“Sam,” Olle says with a smile. “I heard you flew the coop?”

Sam laughs, “I did a little bit, I guess.”

“You know, Dean called me; wants me to help him hunt you down so we can take turns kicking your ass,” Olle says. “Can you at least tell me where you are? So I can tell him you're okay.”

“That's not a good idea Olle, you don't know Dean the way I do. Knowing where I am will just send him barreling straight for me and I'm not coming back until I find some answers!” Sam sounds very serious, and maybe a little angry at his brother for not helping him. 

With a sigh, Olle tries to play peacemaker, “All Dean heard, Sam, was talk about Hell and the Cage. The idea of something happening to you scares the fuck outta him and you know it. I know your history Sam, and after everything that happened to you? Can you blame him for wanting to keep you as far away from Hell, or the Cage, as possible?”

“It's like he doesn't trust me to know what I'm doing,” Sam huffs. “To know what I'm capable of.”

“Maybe you expect too much out of him, Sam. Maybe it's not about what he thinks you can handle, but what he knows he can. You ever thought of that?” Olle wants to know. 

Sam is quiet for a long time, thinking about what Olle just said, before he resigns himself to the fact that the big man is probably right and he has been stupid. “Can you just let him know I'm not looking for a way into the Cage. I'm in NOLA. I'm looking for answers, that's all. I'm probably leaving here, headed to Mississippi in the next day or so.”

“You could call and talk to him yourself,” Olle says. 

Sam laughs, “You know that will just start an argument. Tell him I'll call in a day or two.”

“Okay Sammy,” Olle says tiredly. “If you need me, I can be wherever you are asap.”

“Thanks man,” Sam says with a smile in his voice. “Talk soon. Bye.”

“Bye Sam.” Olle hangs up and kicks his bike to life, headed for the Bunker garage. 

**

“What the fuck do you mean he picked up his phone?” Dean wants to know a half-hour later. “I've been calling him since I realized he was gone.”

“After the week I've had,” Olle grouses, “if you're going to shoot the messenger, aim for my head!” Olle is, in fact, still on his bike in the garage; having shown up just as Dean was about to head out searching for Sam. 

Cas, leaned against Baby's hood, beside Dean, has the wherewithal to be silent while the two men argue. “I ought to,” Dean threatens. “And leave you here until Sam decides to show back up and let him deal with you!”

“The beating you'd get for that, Winchester,” Olle menaces, “would be like none you'd suffered outside of Hell.” Olle is off his bike then, stalking toward the Bunker entrance, and he throws over his shoulder, “I'm going to eat, shower, then sleep; and you'd better be here when I wake up Dean.”

Olle is certain Dean wants to say something, or shoot him in the back, but the immortal hears Cas' steady timber as the door closes behind him, and he is certain Dean will be waiting on him to wake up. 

**

“Who the fuck does he think he is?” Dean bitches almost kicking Olle's bike over, but thinking better of it at the last second; the look in Olle's eyes when he threatened him with a beating was stone cold sober and almost excited. 

“Dean,” Cas intones, reaching out to put a calming hand on his friend's shoulder. “Maybe Olle is right; chasing Sam may not be a good idea. He has assured Olle he is not seeking entrance to the Cage, he promised to call. We should give him time so you can both calm down.”

Dean reluctantly agrees with his best friend. “I'm gonna go to the gun range,” he says shrugging off Cas' hand and heading back inside. 

The angel sighs and, with a thought, is back on Sam's bed in more comfortable clothes. 

**

Leftover burgers in the refrigerator lets Olle know Dean has been anxious about Sam's disappearance. The hunter only knows how to make burgers, mac-n-cheese, or scrambled eggs and, for once, there is food in the refrigerator and the cabinets. Olle is kind of glad Sam ran off now; Dean is a stress eater so he has stocked up. Making himself a burger, Olle grabs the BBQ chips from the counter and the dill spears from the cabinet before heading into the library, plate balanced on the jar of pickles in one hand, three bottles of beer in the other, and chips dangling from his mouth. 

Very impressed with his balance and coordination, Olle pulls a towel off his shoulder to wipe his hands before he picks up a book to read while he eats. The table, about midway down the length of the library, is strewn with books, scrolls, and tablets; many brought upstairs from the main library, all of them possible leads on Amara. 

When Cas drops into a seat across the table and picks up a scroll, mounted to prevent deterioration, Olle notices, but continues eating. Burger long gone, jar of pickles half empty, Olle dumps the remaining chips in his mouth before he picks up a new tablet, his book being of no help to them as far as he can tell. “Have you found anything useful?” the angel finally asks, breaking their long silence. 

“Not particularly,” Olle answers pulling one last pickle from the jar before closing them and putting his dirty plate, empty chip bag, two beer bottles, and the pickles in a chair. When he turns back to his tablet, Cas is staring at him, “What?” the doctor asks with a curious smile. 

“What are you reading?” the angel asks curiously. “What language is that?”

Olle stops skimming the tablet to concentrate for a moment on what is actually in front of him, “It looks like a shipping invoice for large quantities of magickal herbs.” Olle reads down the tablet a ways before he looks up at Cas, “I think whoever bought this was a necromancer. It's a late model Cuneiform from an area that probably evolved into Akkadian. It's not useful at all; the darkness referred to is an allusion to death.”

“You can read Cuneiform?” the angel asks. 

Olle shrugs, “I can read most written languages. If I find one I can't, I can usually backtrack to what came before or work backwards from what came after and I pick it up in a few hours.” Olle puts the tablet down in the discard pile and asks, “You can't?” When Cas shakes his head in the negative, Olle wishes Michael were still alive so he could kill him. “Cas, angels are supposed to be able to read, write, speak, and know every language and alphabet that is or was or will be.”

The angel shakes his head, “That is only archangels. Seraphs and other lower forms of angel do not have that ability.”

That is bullshit, and Olle knows it, because Gabriel was more than shocked to realize Olle knew English at the beginning. It was a great way for them all to communicate, Gabriel, Olle, Legion, Cas, and Balthazar, because only other angels could speak the language. With no angels on Earth, but them, the demons, humans, and creatures had no way to surmise their plans during the wars. Olle cannot, of course, tell Cas any of this, so he shrugs, “Learn something new every day I guess.” 

The two sit for a while longer, Olle goes through several more tablets and scrolls while he finishes his last beer, then, stretching over the back of his seat, yawns, “I'm gonna go shower, then sleep for a few hours. Do you think Dean will be okay? I don't want to wake up and him be half-way to New Orleans.”

“He should be fine,” Cas says putting his book down. “He is just worried about Sam. With Amara who knows where, and Crowley doing no one knows what, the thought of him being out there alone worries Dean, worries me.”

Olle wishes he could ease both their minds by letting them know Gabriel is with him, but he simply nods as he gathers his dirty plate and empty bottles, “I know Cas. He needs this time alone, though, I think. I offered to go straight to him, but he just said he'd call if he needed anything.”


	26. Chapter 26

Back in his room, Olle stops and stares at the bed; he had almost forgotten the last time he was here. The sheets are rumpled and crusty in spots from dried snot and tears and there are empty water bottles in the bed and on the floor. Olle sighs, throwing the plastic bottles in the bin he keeps for recycling, strips the sheets off the bed, shoving them in the all-in-one in his bathroom before he gets in the shower. 

Olle takes the time, still dripping from the shower, to secure the fitted sheet to the mattress, but merely lays down and unfurls the top sheet around him before turning off his lamp and going to sleep. Sleeping alone, again, after being with Beth, means he wakes up screaming a few hours later. He is tempted to find Cas and ask the angel to put him to sleep, but he just rolls over and lays in the dark, trying not to think about Sargon, or any of the others, until just after six. 

**

Dean is doing much better, when Olle comes into the kitchen for coffee. The hunter is standing at the stove, the smell of bacon drifting behind him through the room, and the sound of a whisk stirring eggs the only noise. “You seem to be in a better mood,” Olle says going over to the coffee pot. 

Dean shrugs, “Talked to Sam this morning. He's okay, I'm okay, we're okay.”

“Good,” Olle shakes his head as he drops at the table with his cup. 

Dean turns then, to grab a spatula for the eggs, and starts at how exhausted Olle looks. “Man, did you sleep? You look worse than you did when you got here.”

Olle looks at the only other person in Creation who could possibly understand; Dean has been to hell, tortured souls on the rack, and bore the Mark of Cain. He wants, desperately, to be able to tell the hunter the truth; he needs someone to talk to, but he just shrugs, “Rough night.”

“Eat,” Dean says handing him a plate, “while I go feed Metatron.” 

Olle takes the plate and fork Dean gives him with a smile and a nod, “Thanks Dean.”

The other hunter grabs Metatron's food, “I'll be back in a minute,” is all he says. 

**

“That man,” Dean says shaking his head as he comes back into the kitchen, “is fucking irritating.”

“Is he eating?” Olle wants to know as Dean drops across from him with his own food. 

Shaking his head side to side, Dean mumbles, mouth full, “I think so. As far as I can tell it's not going down the toilet; since you and Sam turned the water off,” Dean snarks.

“He could try to drown himself,” Olle says calmly. 

“We need to decide what we're going to do with him,” Dean says getting up for more coffee and bringing the pot back to the table to fill Olle's cup. He is, Olle will admit, a gracious, thoughtful host. 

“We need to know what he knows,” Olle says. “I want to find out more about the spell he used on Cas.”

“Why?” Dean asks taking their dirty dishes to the sink. 

Olle follows him, pushing him out of the way, “You cooked, I clean. I'm just curious, mainly, about the spell. I got to wondering, when Zachariah sent you to the alternate universe, Cas told you he was, 'all but human' right?” At Dean's curious nod, Olle continues to talk while cleaning the kitchen, “Cut off from Heaven, Cas was diminished, but not fallen or dying or human and, when his Grace was stolen from him, he was completely human. So, how could a pill popping, orgie having, absinthe drinking mortal, still be as kick ass as Cas was? The book speaks, briefly, about certain things; Cas' superior speed and strength as well as many of his more common, what he would probably consider useless, angelic attributes still existing.”

“And?” Dean asks leaning on the table while Olle wipes down the stove and the counters. 

“What if, there, Zachariah used that spell and no one was there to save him?” Olle says looking up at Dean. 

“Where the fuck were you?” Dean wonders suddenly. 

“I started hunting after I came back from Afghanistan, I got tied up with Gabriel, and then taken prisoner by Lucifer. I seriously doubt Gabriel rejoined the ranks and went home,” Olle says with a chuckle, “so I was probably chained up somewhere dying, over and over, while Lucifer got his rocks off watching.”

With a grimace, Dean concedes that point. “So you want to question him?” Dean says scrunching his face up like he thinks it is a ridiculous idea. “He'll lie. He gets off on the attention and he doesn't give a fuck about anything that is going on so, why would he tell the truth?”

Olle nods, starting to sweep, sink empty, dishes put away, everything wiped down, “I have a Witch's Collar and I'm not above using it to make sure he tells the truth. Do you still have his Grace?” Olle asks as Dean moves out of his way. 

“I am not offering him his Grace back on the off chance he will, maybe, pretend to tell us something useful!” Dean says finger in Olle's face for emphasis. 

The big man chuckles, dumping his dustpan in the bin before turning to Dean, “I wouldn't dream of ever, ever, offering him his Grace in return for anything. If he could kill Amara with a word, and giving it back was all it took, I'd let Creation burn,” Olle says honestly; the smarmy man could not be trust. 

“Then why'd you ask?” Dean says suspiciously. 

Olle shrugs, moving out of the kitchen, Dean following, “He is, was, the Scribe of God. He wrote the tablets, there is power in his Grace particular to that; it could be useful.” 

Olle stops outside Sam's room, noise inside and light from under the door lets him know that is exactly where he wants to be. Going in, he drops on the bed in Cas' line of sight to the TV. “Hey Cas,” Olle says with a smile, Dean snarks, dropping in a chair by the bed. “We got yoga, research, and interrogation; where do you want to start?”

The angel sighs, “With the last season of Orange is the New Black.” Olle laughs both at him and the smile that spreads across Dean's face. “However, I'm guessing you don't want to watch a show almost exclusively about women. So, interrogation first I suppose,” he says sitting up on the bed. “Who,” he says then like it just occurred to him, “are we interrogating?”

Olle laughs, “I've never watched the show, no, but I avoid it because it is not my kind of humor, not because of the predominately female cast.”

“Metatron, Cas,” Dean says getting up and heading for the door, “we're interrogating Metatron. Let's go.”


	27. Chapter 27

New Orleans was a city Sam was very familiar with, it is kind of an important place if you are a hunter. He was nursing a cup of chikory coffee and the last bites of beignets at Cafe Du Mond, on the edge of Jackson Square, while the sun started to climb slow in the late October sky. This part of the city never stops, never sleeps, and, though constantly changing, never feels like anything but jazz and old magick to him. Picking up when Dean called earlier was a good idea, he thinks, and realizes he probably has Olle to thank for that; there were no raised voices, demands he come home, or pleading for understanding. They were okay and Sam felt a weight lifted from his chest because he hates fighting with or disappointing his brother more than anything; even all the demons and the spirits and the monsters they kill. 

As the city starts to shake itself loose around him, getting ready for a new day, he folds a tip under his empty cup and hopes it makes up for him sitting here for the last five hours; he met with a few people during the night and, finally, got an address. Moving through the Quarter, past the well traveled tourist spots, Sam turns down a cobbled street and goes confidently through a neighborhood no stranger should be in alone. Coming to a stop at a corner, looking up at an old Creole building that was probably here before the Louisiana Purchase, the hunter heads for the green doors on the red building. Just as he reaches up to knock, the door swings in and a beautiful young Creole woman, at least a foot shorter than him with caramel colored skin, green eyes, and long, immaculate dreadlocks opens the door. 

“Sam Winchester,” the woman smiles, “of all the times you've been in this great city, you never once thought to come say, 'Hello.' Why wait until the very end to seek me out?”

“Answers,” Sam says seriously as the woman leads him into the parlor. Looking around the room, done in black, white, and red, Sam can feel this woman's power; it is a peaceful, heavy feeling that, while noticeable outside, wraps around him like a warm blanket the longer he is in her presence. She is absolutely nothing like Rowena.

She indicates a black and red Louis XV sofa while perching in a matching chair, curling one bare foot under her before she smooths her white skirt and folds her hands in her lap. “And you think I can give them to you? About the Darkness?” Her Creole accent is almost nonexistent, but he hears it now. Laughing, she shakes her head, “No one seems to know anything about it Sam. Except that you're the cause of it; you and that brother of yours,” she says seriously, pointing a judgmental finger in his direction.

“Not about the Darkness,” Sam says, feeling a stab of guilt; even she believes it is the very end. “I've been having visions,” he starts, but she stops him. 

“A thing like you having visions,” she shakes her head, thoughtful, “gotta be a real good reason for it; no doubt.”

“What do you mean, thing?” he asks a little angrily. His whole life, it felt like, he has been made to feel like something less than human; the boy with the demon blood, abomination, vessel. 

“I meant no disrespect Winchester,” she warns, power rising around her. “You defeated Lucifer in a battle of wills. You stopped the apocalypse. You survived the Cage. You withstood the Black Trials. You are, perhaps, the strongest soul ever created.” Her tone is gentle, like she is teaching him his worth, and letting him know he should be proud of who he is; he doesn't see it that way. “If something is strong enough to get past your defenses and give you a vision without you having at least an inkling of who, or what, they are,” she shakes her head, “They gotta have some mighty strong power in they own right, boy.”

“Could they be from God?” Sam wonders. 

A crisp laugh ripples out of her, “He never cared before, not enough to make Himself known. If it were, He would send the Messenger; like He always does. And the Ancestor.” 

“Who?” Sam wonders. “What are you talking about?”

“Gabriel, Sam, He always sends Gabriel,” she says like she is talking about old friends. “Why would someone who has been missing since the beginning go to Mary or Joseph or the Christ, unless He commanded it?”

“Gabriel is dead,” Sam says seriously. “I've been having visions, though, since the Darkness was released. I need to know what they mean, who is sending them!”

“When has death ever stopped a Winchester?” she asks. “Your visions,” she changes gears seamlessly, “you don't like what they are telling you, do you? What are they? What do you see?”

“Hell,” Sam admits finally. “I see visions of my time in the Cage. I see the Cage. I need to know if this is God telling me that is where my answers are, where our salvation is.”

The voodoo woman shakes her head, leaning back in the chair, “There is no way into the Cage without the Book of the Damned, without a witch willing to risk opening the door and setting them both free. Only a fool would do such a thing. He,” she says wisely, “is many things, but He is never a fool.”

“So, you don't believe my visions are form God?” Sam says, disappointed. 

“I don't presume to know anything, Sam,” she says. “I can tell you I feel the weight of what you have done pressing in on you and I can tell you I see an uncertain future for all of us. But,” she gets up now and pulls him back to the front door, “I can't tell you anything about your visions.” Sam now firmly on the other side of her front door, the woman reaches up to run a hand gently through his hair, “I'm sorry child, I truly am, but you should go home; spend what time there is with your brother. I see a vastness coming between you soon that will be impossible to cross. Don't waist your time seeking answers when you don't know the right questions.”

She closes the door before Sam can demand to know what questions he is supposed to be asking and, when he forces the door open, the building is derelict and empty. With a frustrated sigh, he makes his way to Saint Louis Cemetery, to make payment for the useless information he just received.


	28. Chapter 28

Gabriel leaves Sam asleep in his motel room, warded against pretty much everything. Appearing in front of the build Sam was in earlier, he walks to the door and, like Sam, it opens before he can knock. “Messenger,” the girl says with a nod, moving out of the doorway so the angel can enter. 

Once the door is closed, house now closed up and warded as well, or better, than the Bunker, Gabriel grins, wrapping the small woman in a hug before spinning her around and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Marie,” he says happily, “it has been too long.”

“It has,” she smiles turning to go back into the room where she and Sam spoke earlier. 

“What did you tell Sam?” Gabriel asks sitting down in Sam's empty spot. 

Shaking her head, the woman sits with him, “Why don't you ask him?” she wants to know. 

“Sammy still thinks I'm dead, Marie,” the archangel says seriously. “It's not safe to tell him I'm back yet.”

“It gone have to be soon Che, dat boy ain't gone stop 'til he get answers,” she says seriously. “Whoever done put the power to him; it's deep and old, like you. Your brothers still safe where dey at?”

“Safe as houses, Marie, don't worry about them,” Gabriel says. “Where do you think he'll go looking next? If I can get ahead of him,” Gabriel says with a shake of his head, “I can make sure he gets something; enough to stay safe. Enough to keep me safe until the time is right.”

“Where your man; the Ancestor?” the Voodoo Queen asks about Olle. “Time like dis, he should be right witch you.”

Gabriel smiles, he forgot how much she liked Olle. “He is with Dean right now, making sure those two don't kill each other before we can get this done.”

She smiles warmly, but turns serious, “How bad is it Che? Really.”

Gabriel turns to look her in the eye, “When we first met, and you touched Cain while he held the First Blade, that place you said you saw, where nothing ever was, that is the Darkness. In human form, she walks through Creation and, once she is strong enough, she will leave nothing; nothing,” he says with dark certainty. “Not even Olle.”

“So dey is really no place to go,” she says shaking her head in awe. “I walked the banks of the Nile before we knew what to call her and I have done the same here; is there anything I can do to help you?” she asks reaching out to take Gabriel's arm. 

The angel shakes his head, “Not right now. Maybe, though; later. Just, just watch yourself and tell others the same. Amara is her name, stay away from her. Nothing good can come of going near her, she will unmake your soul.”

Marie nods, “You go back to that Winchester and push him toward Savannah and Charleston; there are other witches there. Young, stupid women who will want to impress the famous hunter and they will try harder to give him answers. You can use them to give him what you want him to know.”

Gabriel smiles, leaning over to drop another kiss; to her cheek this time, before he gets up and heads for the door. When the woman opens the door he looks down at her with a happy smile, “It was good to see you Marie. Stay safe.”

“You too Messenger, you too,” she says before she hugs him fast and shuts the door. 

**

Olle leaves Dean and Cas alone to go grab the Witch's Collar from a box of books he has left unpacked in his room. On his way back toward Metatron's room, he turns a corner to find Gabriel, leaned against the wall. “Hey,” the archangel says, “can I talk to you?”

“What's up? Is Sam okay?” he asks immediately. 

“Sam's fine,” the angel answers a little too quickly for Olle to not know his concern hurts Gabriel a little. “He went to see Marie this morning.”

Olle smiles, “I can't believe she agreed to see him. What did she tell him?”

“That she couldn't help him,” Gabriel answers falling in step with the doctor as he makes his way through the Bunker. “But,” he says drawing out the word with a smile, “she did tell me to herd him toward Savannah and Charleston.”

“What are you planning on doing, Gabe?” Olle asks, stopping to look at the angel. 

“I need a witch slash psychic who is both powerful enough and inexperienced enough to not know what I am,” 

“When you feed them information to give him,” Olle finishes. “Makes sense. What are you going to tell him?”

“Don't have a clue yet. Stay out of Hell. Stay away from the Cage. Turn to your friends. Remember your long lost companions. Stop praying,” the angel says rattling off just what comes to him because he doesn't know, yet, what he will say to him.

“Be a little bit more articulate when you figure it out, please,” Olle laughs. “I'll see if I can get Dean to nudge him further east.”

Gabriel waves his hand dismissively, “He's gonna sleep for the rest of the day, he was exhausted.” The angel now seems to notice, for the first time, Olle holding the Witch's Collar, “What are you gonna do with that?”

Olle lifts his hand like he had forgotten it was there and, looking between it and Gabriel, answers, “Dean wants information from Metatron. This is easier than trying to figure out if he's telling the truth.”

“That won't override what Lucifer did to his memory, will it?” the angel worries. 

Olle shakes his head, “Nope. Nowhere near that strong.”

“Good,” the angel says with a nod. “Now, if you'll excuse me,” Gabriel says with a grin, “I'm going to go eat my weight in beignets, muffalettas, and crawfish, while Sammy sleeps.” 

The angel is gone without another word and, chuckling, Olle makes his way to Metatron's room, where Dean and Cas are waiting.


	29. Chapter 29

Olle turns down the corridor and smiles; Cas is leaned against the open doorway into Metatron's room like it is a wall. “I do good work,” Olle laughs stopping in front of Cas. 

“You do,” the angel says appreciatively, moving so Olle can step into the room.

Dean is leaned against the wall beside Metatron's cot, where the former angel sits, glaring between the three of them, “Oh, great,” he says when he sees the Witch's Collar. “At least you're not going to let Ramsey Snow here cut into me,” he says pointing at Dean.

“So says Uriah Heep,” Olle says while fastening the Witch's Collar around the small man's neck. “Besides,” Olle says hoisting the man to his feet, “Crowley is Ramsey Snow. Dean is more,” he pauses to think; not wanting to call him Jon Snow and over inflate his ego, “Jamie Lannister.”

Metatron laughs and Dean just looks at Olle before asking, “What the fuck does that mean?”

Olle knows Dean only saw as far as the character's relationship with his sister so, as they walk Metatron into the library, he explains, “You're a skilled warrior. Despite all the wrong you've done, you always had, at least in your own mind, a just reason. You're singularly devoted to your family.” Olle dumps the Scribe into a chair at the first table and turns to Dean, suppressing a smirk, “What did you think I meant?”

“As long as you're not gonna fangirl all over me,” Dean says shaking his head. “I've had enough of Becky Rosen to last several lifetimes.”

“That girl has problems,” Olle says sitting down across from Metatron while Dean and Cas find their own seats. “You know, I looked her up when I read the books; if she could pull her head out of your brother's ass for a few minutes, she would be a talented writer.”

“You've read that shit?” Dean asks, disgusted look on his face. 

“It's better than Carver Edlund,” Metatron chimes in. 

“Change of topic,” Dean says adamantly. “You,” he points at Metatron, “tell us everything you know about God and the Darkness.”

“Come on Marv,” Olle says, “talk.” Pulling out his phone, he turns on the camera and looks around for his laptop, which is on the table strewn with possible helpful information. 

“Fine,” he snarks, adjusting the Witch's Collar. “In the beginning,” he starts with an air of pompous superiority that, almost, makes Olle want to laugh. 

“Okay,” the doctor says, “lets skip ahead a little bit. It is well established that the Host wasn't created until after the Darkness was locked away. That means, whatever you know about the beginning is second hand. Tell us what you know. Tell us what He told you.”

“Alright,” he says shifting around again. “When I was chosen to write the tablets, God told me the history of Creation.”

“How did the history of Creation only cover angels and demons and leviathans?” Dean wants to know. 

Metatron laughs, “There are eight tablets.”

“What were the others?” Olle asks, this is all information Dean needs to know. 

“The five missing tablets are the green tablet of Fairies, the blue tablet of spirits, the brown tablet of men, the red tablet of the Children of Eve, and the orange tablet of Creatures of Men,” Metatron tells them. “Angel and Leviathan, gold and black, were written first, like a memoir, but the others were postulates, written before those things even came into being.”

“When you were writing the angel and leviathan tablets,” Cas says thoughtfully, “He must have told you about the Darkness and how the Leviathan and the Grigori were created to serve the Archangel's on the battlefield. He must have told you how they defeated her in the beginning.”

Metatron shakes his head, “He told me He had to make a choice between her and Creation. He said he had to sacrifice their happiness, her happiness, to allow anything else to be. I wouldn't know she were His sister if Daddy Dearest weren't a crying drunk,” the Scribe snarks. “Like he was going to tell me anything; I was just the angel closest to the door when He needed a secretary,” the man says bitterly. 

“That's why you did it; wasn't it?” Dean asks suddenly. “Why you cast everyone out. Why you tried to ascend, to become the new God. You just couldn't stand that He thought you were nothing.”

“He thinks we're all nothing! I did it because they,” he points at Cas, “thought I was nothing! I knew everything! I knew what was and what would be, but, still, they ignored me. Until Gabriel left, and took the tablets with him, that is. Then, then Michael sent Legion to kill me so I ran, and I swore, eventually, I'd have my revenge!”

“Michael sent Legion to capture you,” Olle says. “You were to be tortured for the information contained within the tablets. Michael would have never let you die,” he says seriously, “you were potentially far, far too helpful to him.”

“How would you know?” Metatron flings at him angrily. 

“Because Gabriel told me,” Olle says quietly. “In 2009 I was pleading with him to help me help them,” Olle tilts his head at Dean. “I came across a book with your name in it and he told me about the tablets and the coming prophet and about you. He said, when he left Heaven with the tablets, he assumed you were taken by Michael and hidden. But, when he heard Legion had rebelled, fled Heaven, he knew you were in the wind.”

“Who are you?” the snarky former angel wants to know, turning cunning eyes on the big man. 

Olle snorts a laugh, leaning back in his chair, “No one little man, no one. A good friend to a dead angel, nothing more.”

“All right,” he says leaning back and Olle knows the former Scribe absolutely does not believe him. 

“What do you know, really, about the curse you used on Cas?” Olle says shifting gear to something, maybe, a little safer. 

“I found the spell in the Book of Forbidden and Forgotten Magick.” 

At that, Cas sucks in a deep breath he doesn't need. “What were you doing fucking around with things that powerful?” he rumbles, dropping a firm hand on the table. 

“What is it?” Dean asks. “Where did he get it?”

“It is a book, Dean,” Cas says turning serious, angry eyes on his friend. “The book exists only in Heaven and contains, literally, forbidden and forgotten magick. Spells, incantations, rituals that have been deemed too dangerous to allow to continue to exist. God, angels, even, sometimes, man, has found, witnessed, or created magick that was too powerful, too dangerous, for it to be left in the ether. When that happens, the magick and all who know of it are destroyed; a record of the magick, and the consequences, is recorded in the book.”

“And that,” Dean says turning to look at Metatron, “was just something you couldn't resist wasn't it?”

“Something about it, though,” Olle says, “couldn't have been right. What did you get wrong?”

“I didn't get anything wrong,” the man pouts. “I just, there were a few ingredients I was fudging a bit and a few, honestly, that don't exist outside of Heaven anymore; or the fairy realms.”

“And you figured,” Olle realizes, “fallen, weakened, that he would die anyway.”

“Are we done yet?” the smarmy little man asks then. “Because that's all I know, honestly.”

“For now, I guess,” Dean says. 

“Are you going to let me go?” Metatron asks looking between the three of them. 

“Are you going to kill yourself if we do?” Olle asks seriously. 

The man thinks for a few moments before he shrugs, “Probably not, maybe.”

Olle is so tired of this round-faced, hateful, evil little man, he decides to try a different approach from understanding and supportive, “Has it occurred to you, with Hannah dead, it is chaos up there right now. Even if you get a reaper willing to take you to Heaven after what you did to the veil, do you really think the angels won't hunt you down and force you out?” Olle stops for a minute, watching that sink in, before he goes on, “And, if you're lucky, all they do is force you out. They may obliterate you; they may torture you for the rest of eternity. If they force you out, you could find yourself stuck in the veil with nowhere to go. You wanna be a demon? Crowley might take you in Hell. Purgatory won't have you, you're a human soul. You wanna be a vengeful spirit? That cycle would repeat endlessly for you because there is nowhere for you to go.” Olle sounds cold and completely emotionless when he finishes, and he, they, can see Metatron has never thought of it like that.


	30. Chapter 30

A few hours later, Olle comes into the kitchen fresh from the shower and finds Dean cooking. 

“Want something to eat?” the hunter asks. 

“Sure,” Olle says getting a glass of water and dropping at the table. “What's on the menu?”

“I was thinking grilled bacon egg and cheese burgers,” Dean answers. 

“Sounds awesome,” Olle says honestly; Dean may not have a wide range, but what he does know how to cook, he does very well. “You talked to Sam anymore?” Olle asks casually. 

“Nah, not since before breakfast,” Dean says grabbing four large baking potatoes and starting to make wedges. “Why?”

“I was just wondering. I know he's looking for answers. I was just thinking about it is all.” Olle wishes he could be done with all this subterfuge; soon he prays to himself, soon. 

“Got any ideas that don't involve Hell? I'm all ears,” Dean says as he starts to mix ground beef and spices. 

Olle smiles, “Just, you want him to stay safe. There are hundreds, thousands, of real psychics and witches he could turn to and that's dangerous; especially for a hunter with the last name Winchester.” Dean nods agreement. “The easiest thing to do would be stay in well known supernatural areas. He is in NOLA right now, places like Savannah and Charleston too, though. The cities are old, full of magick and death, but it is known, celebrated. The ghosts either faked or generally harmless and, places like that, there are always a half dozen hunters around if he needs anything and one of us can't get to him.”

“Good point,” Dean says. “I'll have to talk to him about it. I wish, though, he'd just come home.”

“I know you do Dean,” Olle laments, “but, if he is doing this, at least he's not trying to break into the Cage or get past Crowley and back into Hell.”

The two men eat, the burger was amazing and the seasoned potato wedges were awesome, but it is too soon for Olle to head to bed unless he wants to wake up at three without any hope of getting back to sleep. Heading into the library, the doctor sits down and picks up a book from the stack that could, possibly, be helpful. He sits reading until almost four, finding nothing helpful, before he drags himself into bed. Exhaustion, blessedly, keeps his nightmares at by until almost ten and, when he wakes up panting, he decides to get dressed and go for a jog.

** 

As Olle comes into the kitchen for a bottle of water, he sees Dean hanging up the phone. “Sam?” Olle asks filling a sports bottle from the sink. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Where you going?”

“Just for a jog,” Olle says. 

“You need to sleep Olle,” Dean says seriously. “You look like shit. I know you're not sleeping; I hear you up late at night and you're usually up before I am. What's keeping you awake?” Dean really wants to know. “Believe me, man, I've seen,” he shakes his head, “I've seen some shit and done some things that should send me screaming to the funny farm. Talk to me.”

“Fuck,” Olle swears quietly with a shake of his head and a hand scratching through his short hair. “You have no idea how goddamn much I want to Dean. But, I can't right now.”

“What does that mean?” Dean wants to know. 

“When Sammy gets back, man,” Olle says, figuring he is going to have to, soon, make a leap of faith. “When you're all three here and I don't have to tell it over and over; I don't think I can get through it all more than once.”

“Is everything okay?” Dean is worried. 

Olle smiles, “Yeah, I'm not dying or anything, if that's what you mean,” the immortal jokes. 

Dean smiles, but he is curious now, “Is it about the Darkness?”

“No,” Olle says truthfully, “it's about me.”

“Okay man,” Dean reluctantly accepts the bigger man's word. “Just, don't hesitate, if you need something.”

“I know Dean,” Olle says quietly, thankfully. “Thanks. I'm just gonna,” he gestures with the bottle of water in his hand; Dean nods and lets him go. 

**

Sam wakes up to the sound of his phone ringing, Dean. “Hey Dean,” he says sitting up on the side of the bed with a yawn. “What's up?”

“Just checking-in,” his brother says. “You said you may have found something, was wondering,” he says casually, “if anything happened.”

“It's okay that you were worried Dean,” Sam says with smile; knowing his brother's tone. “I met with someone, but she said she couldn't tell me anything about the visions. I'm gonna head east into Mississippi.”

“Savannah or Charleston,” Dean says. “There are some powerful psychics there.”

“Yeah,” Sam says running a hand through his hair, “yeah, I'm headed that way anyway.”

“Look, Sammy,” Dean starts, “if you need anything.”

“I know Dean,” his brother sighs. “I'll call you. Bye, Dean.”

“Later Sammy.”

A look at his phone gives him a start, he slept the whole day after leaving Marie Laveau's and, if he hurries, will just make check-out. The walk around the block to Verti Marte for dirty rice and a po'boy leaves him headed across the Lake Pontchartrain bridge a few minutes before noon and he makes it to Savannah by eleven. 

When Sam realized he was going to need a place stay in the historic district of Savannah, he realized he absolutely could not afford it; credit card fraud was great, but only if you were careful about where you spent your money. Sitting at a gas station across the street from the Colonial Park Cemetery, Sam pulled out his phone and dialed Olle's number. 

“Hey Sam,” Olle's voice comes out drowsy and tired. 

“Hey Olle,” Sam says concerned, “did I bother you? Are you okay?”

Olle chuckles a little, yawning, “I'm good Sam. Just, long day. Not sleeping. What's up?”

Sam suddenly has no idea why he called the big man, he knows, but he suddenly has no idea why he thought it was okay to do so. “Sam,” Olle wonders, “you there?”

“Yeah, man, sorry,” he says shaking his head. “Long drive, sorry.”

“It's okay Sam, where are you?”

“A gas station in Savannah, thinking about a place to sleep,” he says yawning now himself. 

“You don't have a hotel?” Olle asks. “Why did you always strike me as the type to book online at least a day early?” Olle laughs. 

“Yeah,” Sam says running a hand through his hair, “I usually do.”

“Just, give me a minute,” Olle says. Sam can hear him moving around, papers shuffling, before the big man comes back, “Where are you exactly?” Sam give him the cemetery as a reference point and the line is quiet for a few minutes; he can hear the click of laptop keys. “Okay,” Olle comes back, “The Marshall House is the closest thing to you. What ID are you using? I'll get you a room; it should be ready when you get there.”

“Come on Olle,” Sam says reluctant, “you don't have to do that.” Even though that is exactly why Sam called him; he just feels bad about it now. “I can sleep in the truck,” he says. Honestly, though, the beat up old blue Chevy was great, but, at his size, the idea of sleeping in the cab was ridiculous. 

Olle laughs at that, “Come on man, you're eight feet tall! That's stupid. Just tell me what name you want the reservation under.”

Sam laughs then too, “I'm not eight feet tall! You're eight feet tall! Just use Samuel Roussimoff.”

“Funny,” Olle says deadpan. “he was a foot taller than you. You got ID?”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckles. 

“Good,” Olle says. “Go get some sleep Sam, you sound like I feel.”

“Thanks Olle,” Sam says sincerely. 

“Don't worry about it Sam,” the big man says before he hangs up. 

The hotel is very old, very nice, and, Sam assumes, very expensive, but he has a room with a king-sized bed waiting for him and he falls into it exhausted.


	31. Chapter 31

Psychic Virginia Lane. Sam stares at the name on the door for a long time before he goes inside. The sound of a bell was immediately followed by the soft scent of incense; not nearly as overwhelming as is normally the case in these places. 

“Can I help you?” a woman asks coming through the gold beaded curtain from a room further inside. She is about Sam's age with dark hair and soft hazel eyes; dressed in jeans and a white sweater, she looks very little like most of the witches and psychics he normally interacts with. 

“Hi,” Sam says with a small smile. “I was hoping you were open?” The sign on the door said she closed a half hour ago, but he had spent the day running down old friends and new leads so he could make sure she was the real deal and could give him the answers he needed. 

The woman takes a long look at him before she nods, “I'll see you.”

Sam follows her through the beaded curtain, into a royal blue room where there are typically candles burning, but now it is lit by the bright fluorescent bulbs overhead. The vintage, round dining table in the middle of the room has a folded black table cloth laying in the middle of it with a purple alter cloth and wooden tarot box weighing it down. “How can I help you?” she asks reaching for the deck, getting ready to lay everything out. 

Sam reaches for her hand, “That won't be necessary. I was just hoping we could talk?”

She shakes her head almost nervously, but motions for him to join her at the table; where she pushes everything to the side. “What do you want to talk about?”

**

Gabriel arrived at Virginia Lane's little shop almost an hour before Sam knocked on her door. He spent that time carefully evaluating her psychic abilities and, while she was gifted, her abilities were not strong enough to detect his presence. A slow perusal of the building assured the angel she was familiar with what really exists in the world; salt lines, charms, and sigils warded the place from many supernatural forces. 

His final test came in the form of her last client for the day, a young woman who came in for a Tarot reading. As the woman sat, shuffling the cards, Virginia focused her abilities on the her client and Gabriel reached out, as well, scanning the young woman's mind for helpful information. When Virginia took the Tarot from her, Gabriel leans down to whisper in the psychic's ear, “She wants to cut her hair.” 

It was mundane, but it was also the thought that sparked the argument with her boyfriend that sent her to Virginia in the first place. He knew the psychic was not strong enough to pick such specifics from her client's mind, but, if she heard him, he could use her to relay information to Sam without the woman suspecting who or what he was. 

After Virginia turns the cards in a familiar layout, she stares at them for a long moment before she turns to the young woman and says, “There is turmoil and indecision in your life right now. You have argued with someone over your own autonomy. This man,” she points to a card, “feels like he owns you and your right to express yourself; he doesn't,” Virginia says matter of factly. 

The two women talk back and forth for almost forty-five minutes and Gabriel is beginning to wonder if he needs to find another psychic when, finally, as the woman is finishing up her reading, Virginia says, “If he believes he has the right to tell you you can't do something as simple as cut your hair, and then fight with you about it, what makes you think he won't become even more possessive in the future? A man who feels he is more entitled to you than you are is no kind of man to have in your life.”

Gabriel looses all interest in the conversation now, satisfied she heard him, and goes back to Sam; waiting across the street for Virginia's last client to leave. 

**

Sam decided, on the long drive from New Orleans, to be completely candid with the next psychic he tried to talk to. Marie Laveau has been top tier, and unwilling to talk, but he couldn't expect other, less powerful psychics to just know why he sought them out. Sam waited, though, for Virginia to get comfortable and, finally, ask him why he was there before he took a deep breath and started to talk. 

“My name is Sam Winchester,” he pauses to watch her face, waiting on recognition. When none comes, he wonders if she is really who he needs to talk to, but he continues, “I'm a hunter. Do you know what I mean when I say that?”

“You hunt demons and put angry spirits to rest. I know what a hunter is.”

“Good,” Sam is relieved. “I want to talk to you about visions. I've been having visions and I think, maybe, they are from God.”

“Your visions aren't from God,” she says right away, not sure how she knows, but it feels truer than anything she has ever said. “But, I don't think that means God isn't the one answering your prayers.”

“What do you mean?” Sam leans forward in his chair; she knew he was praying, maybe she could be helpful.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” she says. “But, you have to be willing to embrace the unexpected; the help you get may be something you never expected.”

“That's the second time I've heard that,” Sam says. “That's not even in the Bible.”

“Doesn't mean it's not true, kiddo,” she says having no idea that is exactly what Gabriel just whispered to her; the angel laughs when she repeats it verbatim.

“What?” Sam asks; Gabriel was the only one who ever called him that. As much as Olle talks about him, Sam had been thinking about the dead angel a lot lately; missing him a little even.

“I'm sorry, what?” Virginia says; she had been distracted by the archangel's happy laugh. 

“But,” Sam decides to continue, “my visions are more than just visions; it's like they are memories of somewhere I've been before and swore I'd never go again. It feels like I'm being herded back there. Should I go back?”

Gabriel is very specific now, concentrating on getting her to repeat him exactly; luckily, she does, “You carry your past, there is no help for it, but you do not wear it. Going backwards is never the answer. Remember what you were, know who you are, and strive to become who you want to be. We are, all of us, thousands of different people from beginning to end.”

“That's not a no,” Sam points out. 

“That's not a 'yes' either though,” Virginia quips all on her own. 

Sam chuckles, dimples showing, and leans forward to shake her hand, “Thank you.” When Virginia takes his hand she sucks in a hard breath and jerks away as if burnt. “What did you see?” Sam want to know immediately. 

Virginia, though, rushes past him to the toilet and empties the contents of her stomach. Sam is right where she left him when she returns. Back in her seat, Sam asks again, and she answers slowly, “I don't get visions, not like that. Impressions, thoughts, intuition, but not visions. I didn't really see anything,” she scrunches her face up thoughtfully, like it is painful and confusing to give voice to whatever it was. “Love, I felt a fathomless, overwhelming love that was close to swallowing you whole.” At the look on Sam's face she is quick to go on, “It isn't evil or magickal or dangerous, just,” there goes her head again, that look on her face, “vast and old beyond telling. It, he,” she says suddenly, like it just occurred to her this thing she felt could be a person, “will protect everything, protect you, and give you what you need; what you've prayed for.”

“Is it God?” Sam wants to know. A male form, old beyond telling, full of love and offering protection, God is the only thing Sam can think of. 

Virginia shakes her head, though, “He is lost, broken, heartbroken, and all alone. I don't think it's God, Sam, but it has to be something almost as old as He is.”

Gabriel, leaned again the door facing, is pretty sure her vision was of Olle and he wishes he had never agreed to follow the kid around; like he needed a chaperon. With a thought, the angel is gone, and Sam heads back to his hotel alone.


	32. Chapter 32

Sam left his hotel, after a shower, to look for something to eat. Savannah is a southern mecca when it comes to food, so he decides to walk around the historic district in search of something that looks interesting. Knowing he cannot leave the city without having shrimp and grits, a personal favorite but Dean despises the texture of grits so Sam never orders it; a sacrifice, but Dean's bitching ruins the experience anyway.

B. Matthew's Eatery, according to Yelp, has some of the best shrimp and grits in Savannah, and is less than a half mile from the hotel, so Sam makes his way there. Thankful Olle paid for his hotel, Sam spends twice what he and Dean normally spend on fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits, and pecan pie; he is tempted to take pictures and send them to Dean just to torture him a little. 

After dinner, Sam continues to walk around the historic district, bypassing the hotel and going to Starbucks. Skipping his regular triple red-eye, he opts for a salted caramel macchiato. While he waits for the barista to call his name, he picks up the paper someone left at their table and starts to read an article about deaths near Charleston. By the time Sam hears his name, he is itching to get to his laptop; he thinks he has found a hunt. 

**

By just after midnight, Sam has dug up everything he can for the past fifty years on the little piece of river just north of Charleston where, in the past two weeks, three people have been killed. Convinced he has found a case, Sam grabs his cell phone and calls his brother. 

“Sammy?” Deans voice comes through a little slurred though Sam can't tell if it from sleep or whiskey. 

“Dean,” Sam says, “did I wake you?” He hopes so. 

“Uh, yeah, man; you did,” Dean yawns and Sam can hear him moving around in the bed now, the click of the lamp. “It's been a long day. We, Did you get that file I sent you?”

“Metatron, yeah,” Sam says. “But, okay, check this out Dean. I stumbled across this newspaper article. Three people in the last two weeks, found in a pond in Charleston.”

“And you think it's a case,” Dean says. “Why?”

“They were beheaded, Dean,” Sam says almost excited. 

“Any other connection between the victims?” Dean asks and Sam can hear his brother start to move around the room, getting ready to leave. 

“Yeah,” Sam clicks through the open tabs on his laptop, “cousins. Some more distant than others, but all related somehow. I hacked the South Carolina SBI and they are waiting for full autopsy reports on all the victims before they do anything but the Charleston field office of the FBI has passed on the case. The report I read,” Sam clicks again, “says they believe the first one was a drowning and the body was torn up by the boat that found it, the second was a boating accident, and the last one may be suspicious, but they kicked it back to SBI 'cause they don't see a link between the other two.”

“Where are you? I'll be outta here in the hour,” Dean says, fully awake and ready to travel. 

“I'm still in Savannah, Dean,” Sam says. “Listen, though, this is gonna take some finesse; there is an FBI field office in Charleston, they are looking into one of these already and the SBI is involved; we are gonna have to be careful.”

“I'll talk to Olle,” Dean says. “You should have seen what he did with one phone call while we were hunting vamps in North Dakota. He's got some sort of Rain Man hacker friend who can do just about anything apparently.”

Sam and Dean are both quiet for a few moments, thinking of Charlie. It has, after all, only been six months and it still hurts. “Okay Dean, just, try to get a few hours sleep and leave in the morning. I'm sorry I woke you.”

“Don't worry about it Sammy, I'm good to go,” Dean says before hanging up. 

Sam lays down his phone and decides to try to get some sleep himself; hoping Dean decides to go back to bed for a few hours. At times like this he wishes his brother would fly, or that Cas were just a little bit stronger than he currently is. 

**

Olle jerks awake, hands running all over his body, checking to make sure his skin is still there. He lays in the dark, hands unconsciously covering the scars of Gabriel's brand, letting his breathing slow to normal; waiting for his heart to stop feeling like it is trying to jump right out of his chest. When he feels the solidity of existence settle around him again, he reaches for his phone, only just midnight; he had slept less than an hour. Tomorrow he is writing himself prescriptions for Effexor, Risperdal, and Minipress; he isn't operating anymore so he can take the drugs without worrying. He was taking them after his first tour in Afghanistan and they helped with the nightmares; maybe they will help even now, since he has remembered Hell and everything else. 

As he is coming back from the bathroom, a knock on the door forces him to bypass his huge bed. Squinting into the too bright corridor, Olle merely grunts, “Huh?” at the Dean shaped form he is trying, and failing, to focus on. 

“Sammy just called,” the hunter says. “I need a favor.”

“Uh huh,” Olle manages before letting go of his door and turning around to fall back on his bed. 

For the first time, Dean follows him into the room and gets a look around. The walls are brick, the floor concrete, but it is at least three times the size of his room and, “Do you, you have a bathroom!” Dean exclaims jealously. “How do you have a bathroom?”

“It is a great room,” Olle whispers, rolling over to look at Dean, the light from the corridor falling on him where he sits on the ottoman that matches the chair in the corner by the bed. “What is this favor?” Olle voice is still a whisper and even that echos through his head painfully. 

Dean runs his hands through his hair, he knows there is something seriously wrong with Olle, but the big man refuses to talk about it, so he just says, “Sammy called, he thinks he's caught a case in Charleston. Something about three beheaded corpses in a pond or whatever. The Charleston cops have kicked it to the SBI who are trying to kick to the Charleston field office of the FBI.”

“And you need me to get my hacker friends to kick it up to D.C. so you and Sammy can have the case,” Olle finished for him; still at barely a whisper. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, “if you could.”

“Sure,” Olle rolls away from Dean to grab his phone and asks, “When are you leaving and what names are you using?”

“I was gonna head out now,” Dean says. “As far as alias'? I'll have to check with Sammy and get back to you on that; is that okay?”

“Sure Dean, just be careful. You wanna take Cas? Or see if he feels strong enough to push you at least part of the way? It's a 21 hour drive if you don't stop.”

“Nah.” Dean hesitates, “I don't know; maybe. I'm gonna go talk to him now, tell him I'm leaving.”

“Text me and let me know if he goes with you. Text me as soon as you talk to Sam about alias',” Olle says waking his phone up to call Beth. 

Dean is gone with a, “Okay,” door closed, room dark once again, before her phone even starts to ring. 

“Hey,” she says sleepily into the phone. 

“Hey,” he says happily into the dark, speaker on and phone laying on his chest. He adjusts the volume so it doesn't hurt his head quite as much and starts to talk, “Dean has an official hacker request.”

“Really?” she laughs. “Do tell.”

“They need clearance on a case in Charleston. The locals have kicked it to SBI who is trying to hand it off to the FBI field office there and they are trying to kick it back to SBI.”

“And your boys want jurisdiction,” she finishes for him. 

“Yep,” Olle says, eye closes tight as his head continues to pound. 

“You okay?” she asks, knowing by his tone he is anything but. 

“Just need to get more than an hour of sleep at a time,” he says sounding exhausted. “Dean said he'd get back to me asap with the names they are going to use.”

“I'll take care of it, just let me know,” Beth says. “I love you,” she states, quietly. “Try to lay back down.”

“I love you,” Olle sighs. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Beth says sadly. 

Olle rolls over to put his phone down and, when he rolls back, Balthazar is in the bed beside him. “I'm here to sleep with you,” the angel says seriously.

No way can Olle help the shocked, happy laugh that burst forth. Calming down, noticing Balthazar's grin, Olle asks, “Was this Beth's idea or yours?”

“Both,” he says quickly. “You woke her up to do something and I like to cuddle. Now,” he says rolling over and preceding to move Olle around in the bed until the angel is being spooned by the man twice his size. 

Olle feels the angel start to spread his Grace through his body and he sighs into the healing touch. “Thanks Baz,” Olle adjust the smaller man in his arms; the fit isn't right, the body is too long and too svelte, but he tries to relax anyway. 

“Go to sleep Olle,” Balthazar says with a yawn. Olle smiles and does just that.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter.

When Dean told Cas he was leaving, the angel said he felt strong enough to take Dean at least part of the way and the hunter quickly found himself sitting on the side of the road, in Baby, just east of Nashville on Interstate 40. The eight hour drive meant he was settled into The Evergreen Motel by just before eight that morning and could get a few hours of sleep before Sammy drove up from Savannah. They had spoken, briefly, again before Dean went to sleep and he was able to send Olle a text letting him know they would be agents James and Springfield; hopefully the man's hacker friend could get them what they needed sooner rather than later. 

**

Olle woke up late, it was noon, feeling much better than he had in days. Balthazar was laying beneath him, Olle's head settled on the angel's stomach while he sat up watching a huge TV now hung on the wall at the foot of the bed. “Dean sent you a text message. I forwarded it to Beth already. He is in Charleston, Cas apparently sent him as far as Nashville. They are going to be agents James and Springfield; who do they know named Rick?” the angel wonders distastefully. 

Olle stretches lazily, trying not to lose the sleepy, well rested comfort he feels, “Cas has been watching The Walking Dead since he finished Orange is the New Black. Thanks for sending Beth that info,” he says finally willing himself up on the side of the bed. 

“No problem,” the angel says. “You don't mind the TV, do you?” he asks as Olle makes his way to the bathroom. 

Olle chuckles, “It's fine. Where'd it come from?”

“Best Buy,” the angel says. “And yes, I paid for it.”

Olle knows their snapping does not, in fact, just create things out of thin air; Gabriel and Lucifer are the only ones who can do that and, even then, that is not exactly what they are doing. He made it perfectly clear, what they appropriate, they pay for. 

“I'm gonna shower,” Olle calls turning on the water. “Then I gotta go check on Metatron. You can stay, if you'd like, just don't let Cas see you.”

“I'll head back after this is over,” Balthazar says. He is watching something, Olle paid very little attention to it, in French, about werewolves during the French Revolution. “Are you feeling better?” the angel asks appearing the bathroom doorway as Olle steps into the shower. 

“I really am Baz, thank you. I needed to sleep; badly.” 

“Good,” he says with a nod and, after a thoughtfully long look at the hunter through the frosted glass of the shower, he goes back to his movie. 

**

Dean wakes up at one, to the sound of Sam knocking on the motel door. Dean is starting to realize, as he gets closer and closer to forty, that five hours of sleep is just not good enough; unfortunately for him, he thinks as he gets up to unlock the door, Sam still seems to be doing just fine on minimal sleep. 

After letting his brother in, Dean bypasses his bed and heads straight for the bathroom; if he is going to be up, he needs a shower. “Have you heard from Olle?” he yells to his brother as he starts to strip, door open. 

“Not Olle,” Sam says, “but I got an email from someone on a private server with everything we need in it. I got copies of necessary forms, confirmation of paperwork sent to the field offices in Columbia and here in Charleston, the SBI office, and the local Sheriff's office giving Agent's James and Springfield cart blanch,” Sam says as he drops his bag on the still made bed meant for him and goes over to pull his laptop out at the table. “It was thorough Dean,” Sam says seriously. “Whoever is doing this for Olle, they are either really, really good at it or they are actually pretty high ranking in the FBI and covering his ass for him.”

“Gotta be a hacker,” Dean calls from the shower, barely hearing his brother as he washes his hair. “We weren't FBI in North Dakota, U.S. Marshalls.”

Sam doesn't say anything, but his starting to think, maybe, Olle is keeping more secrets than he is telling. The big man is cursed, immortal, and, even if Sam trusts him with his life, he has a nagging thought in the back of his mind that he has never been the best judge of character. He pulls out his phone, though, at the thought of Olle, and fires off a text; thanking him for getting his friend to help them. 

**

When Dean is out of the shower and dressed, after giving his brother a welcoming hug, they head across the street to Boxcar Betty's before making their way to the FBI field office where an agent directs them to the local Sheriff's office. The whole process, following standard procedure, seems odd and, Sam's hair not withstanding, makes him nervous. He and Dean have both been on top of the Most Wanted list too many times in the past for either of them to be completely comfortable walking, willingly, into the building. It all goes off without a hitch, though, and they quickly find themselves at the Charleston County Sheriff's Office. 

“Agents,” Sheriff Cannon, a surly looking older man who reminds them both, immediately, of Bobby, greats them with a hearty handshake. 

“James and Springfield,” Sam says taking the man's hand before Dean does the same. 

“Let me get you up to speed, then,” the Sheriff says. “Donnelly,” a young deputy, blond and green eyed, looks over, “get these men set up in the small conference room.” With a nod, the deputy accepts the hand off and the Sheriff disappears. 

**

Three days later, Dean is climbing walls in their little motel room, “Dammit Sam!” 

'Oh joy, the pacing has started again,' Sam thinks to himself from his seat behind his computer screen; the safest place he has found. Yesterday, another two decapitated bodies were found in the water, cousins to the other three. All men, all under forty, all last name Brown; besides the obvious relation to each other, though, they had little in common and even less by way a reason for anyone, supernatural or otherwise, to want them dead. The whole family, as far back as Sam could trace, was lower-middle class, barely scraping by, gun owning, Confederate flag flying, right-wing Southern Baptists who are just convinced their good o'l boy family members are getting drunk and getting killed while paying homage to their fallen cousins. The men worked different jobs, went to different colleges, different high schools, different Churches; they all even lived spread out over a two hour travel time around the city. 

“Dean,” Sam intones calmly, “we'll find the connection. We'll find what's doing this. Just calm down and help me,” he says gesturing to the pile of genealogy information and folk history Sam dug up at the library and the historical society earlier today. 

Dean drops, heavy and grunting, into the other chair. “Fine, give me something to read,” he says picking up a stack of papers before moving, again, to land on the bed. 

Dinner long gone, empty boxes stinking up the trash, Sam thinks he may have found something. “Hey Dean,” he is loud and it wakes his brother up where he just drifted off. “Dean I think I found something!” Sam gets up and goes over to the bed, where he shoves his brother's feet to the floor and drops beside him. “Look at this,” Sam hands him a stack of papers, photocopies if immigration records for the family dating back to 1735.

Dean sits up and takes the pages, not really able to focus yet, but he groans, “Okay, explain.”

“It's a Dullahan, Dean,” Same grins at his brother. 

“A what Sammy?” Dean lays the pages down and gets up, reaching for the whiskey bottle on the table. 

As his brother takes a long drink, Sam says, “A headless horseman, Dean, a real headless horseman!” 

Dean promptly chokes on his whiskey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting close to the end, but I'm having trouble putting the final nails in. It's because when I started this whole thing, October was a year ago, the next one is the first one I wrote and I'm going to have to change some things about it. I'm also struggling with what, and how much, to change. This whole thing started out as a therapy exercise and it just seemed to grow, but I put a lot of myself into it, literally, and now I don't know where to pull back.


	34. Chapter 34

Dean is doubled over, wheezing, forced to go over and drink from the sink before he can exclaim, “Like Ichabod Crane?” incredulously. Sam, Dean thinks, is way too excited about this. 

“Dude, you okay?” Sam worries, pounding his brother on the back as he falls into another fit of coughing. “Yes, like Ichabod Crane. Only...”

Dean has stopped paying attention to Sam's ramblings about the difference between mythology, folk lore, and history. He picks up the immigration papers Sam handed him and goes over to his brother's computer. They aren't use to anymore weird shit happening on Halloween than normal, but it is late October so Dean looks at what his brother dug up to bring him to the Ichabod conclusion. All the cousins, it seems, are related through one great-grandfather whose great-great-great-grandmother was born on this ship in 1735. 

“What got you from this baby, Meara, to a headless horseman?” Dean asks finally, not making whatever obscure connection Sam must have to get his dork brain so excited. 

Sam comes over and pulls the empty chair up beside Dean before he gets a pen and starts to point at the screen, “The Dullahan is a death omen. They were going to die no matter what, but it has been summoned to kill them. It is part of a ritual.” Sam trails off before clicking through open tabs to find what he is looking for, “It is like the dragons or the Nachzehrer. Someone is building an army of these things and killing these men to do it.”

“So Christopher Walken cuts off your head and you, what, become a Christopher Walken?” Dean looks at Sam affronted by the very idea. 

“That's it in a nutshell,” Sam drops his pen and looks at his brother. 

“But why? How? Who?” Dean wants to know. “And, again, what about this Meara girl?”

“The ritual releases power,” he is cycling through tabs again. “You obliterate your family line by raising all the men as Dullahan and they, in turn, serve you. Meara,” Sam pauses for dramatic effect, “is the one doing the killing.”

“Huh?” Dean is so confused and he wants more whiskey, if Sam won't just let him go back to sleep, but his throat is sore from the choking and he justs want to go back to sleep. 

“She is a witch Dean,” Sam says seriously. “A necromancer. Didn't you see the newspaper article?” Sam hands him a sheet of paper, under the immigration pages, about a woman hung for witchcraft in 1760, Meara Browne.

“Why is a witch trying to build an army of headless horsemen?” Dean grabs the whiskey and turns it up, it burns but he refuses to act like it. 

“The ritual,” Sam grabs a book then, from under a stack of paper, “gives the witch power, ridiculous amounts of power to see through time. With enough of these things, if she obliterated her whole line, she could see the Darkness, see how it was defeated by God.”

“Is that really what you think she's trying to do?” Dean scoffs. 

“Everything we've run across lately has been trying to fight the Darkness,” Sam says. “Why not?”

“Okay,” Dean shakes his head, turning up his bottle again, “but, Sammy, she can't keep killing people to get this kind of power. We gotta take her out, man!”

“I know Dean,” Sam admits, even if he would tell anyone else who asked that a few hundred people for the lives of everyone, everything, would be worth it.

“These things aren't supposed to have second sight,” Dean says reading the lore book about the Dullahan. “How would this work?”

“It says their heads can see great distances; allow them to see who needs to be taken, who is going to die,” Sam says taking the book and pointing out the important parts. “That means they can see through time, so they know when to come and where to go.”

**

Sam goes to bed, but it would seem Dean is awake for the long haul so he finishes his bottle and keeps searching for where this witch could be hiding. In plain sight, probably, like they always do; skeevey and gross, spewing blood and bodily fluids everywhere. Dean fucking hates witches. 

Figuring he isn't the only one awake, Dean picks up his phone and calls Olle, the big man answers after the third ring, “Hey Dean,” even at an hour behind, it is three in Kansas and he sounds wide awake. 

“I thought for sure I'd be waking you up,” Dean says quietly, not to bother Sam. 

“Yeah, well, I don't sleep so well when I'm alone,” is all he says. “Is everything okay?”

“Don't know,” Dean says ignoring Olle's confession. “Sammy seems to think this is a witch, killing off her family to create headless horsemen,” he admits like it is the most far fetched thing anyone has ever come up with. 

“Dullahan, or headless horsemen?” Olle wants to know. 

“Aren't they the same thing?” Dean asks, curious. 

“No, actually,” Olle says. “Dullahan are fairies. They come for people who have fairy blood. They are like fairy-realm reapers.”

“Fairies have there own reapers?” Dean is totally not drunk enough for this conversation; how does Olle even know all this shit?

“They don't go to Purgatory, did you see any when you were there?” Olle asks with a chuckle. “They go to Nod when they die.”

“Isn't that where Cain was supposed to be exiled to when he killed Abel?” Dean asks. 

Olle smiles, Dean can almost feel it, “Cain's wife was his half sister Abrianna, her mother was fae; she took him with her, out of Eden, to the East, but he died with the Mark,” 

“And became a demon,” Dean finishes. 

“And she took their children, Enoch and his brothers and sisters, away from men; back to her mother's people.” Dean would swear he sounds like he is remembering, not reciting information read in a book.

“How do you know all this?” Dean wonders in that sleepy, middle of the night way where you don't expect an answer because you know it won't be true. 

“I told you, Dean, we can talk about me later,” Olle says seriously. “These headless horsemen, there are legends all over Europe. They are angry spirits created when someone is murdered, beheaded, and their head stolen. The head has to be taken and the body salted and burned.”

“And?” Dean asks, knowing he is going to tell him how to kill them. 

“Find the heads, salt-and-burn them, and the spirits usually turn on whoever murdered them before they move on.”

“But all the bodies have their heads,” Dean realizes. “This can't be a headless horsemen thing, then, can it?”

Olle thinks for a moment, “The bodies haven't been released yet, if the witch is a family member she could be waiting to take them all at once and use them for whatever as soon as she has the heads. And Dean,” Olle gets very serious, “if she is doing this now, this fast, this has been something she has been planning for a long time. If she is killing her family, the smart thing to do, to gain power, would be to raise as many of them as possible, even if they have been dead for centuries. Check for grave robberies within the family. Not just recently; she could have been collecting heads for centuries.”

“I fucking hate witches,” Dean laments. 

Olle laughs. “I can get on a plane and be there in the morning,” he offers. 

“Nah, it's just one witch; we got this. Get some sleep.” 

“You too Dean,” Olle says before hanging up.


	35. Chapter 35

Dean doesn't sleep and, after a shower and a trip to I-HOP, he kicks Sam awake at seven. “Rise and shine Sammy, I've got breakfast!”

Sam struggles to disentangle himself from his sheet before heading to the bathroom. The younger Winchester is silent until he drops, still just in his boxer-briefs, at the table in front of the coffee Dean put there for him. “Thanks Dean,” Sam mumbled into his cup before pulling the box of pancakes and bacon his brother got him over and starting to eat. 

Dean sits with his coffee and eats his burger slowly, enjoying the mess of the over easy egg and loving that a smirk and a wink got him extra bacon, extra fries, and extra pickles. When they are both almost finished eating, and he is licking a mixture of egg yolk, honey mustard, and pickle juice off his fingers, Dean starts to talk, “I called Olle last night, after you sacked out.”

“What'd he say?” Sam asks casually, but he has that nagging suspicion again, that the big man is much, much more than he lets on. 

“He said there was a difference between a Dullahan and a headless horseman,” Dean starts. “And, when we got off the phone, I did some digging.” Dean turns Sam's computer around now, so his little brother can read the screen, “He was right.”

Sam can't believe he missed this, “How'd you find this?” he looks up at Dean. 

“I did some digging, Sammy. What, think I can't do research?” Dean chuckles, but, truth be told, Olle sent him a text telling him to check his e-mail and, sure enough, there were a series of links to what Sam was looking at now. 

After an hour of reading, and doing more research, Sam is convinced everything Olle told Dean last night was true. “We gotta find her,” Sam says getting up to pull out clean clothes. “She could have been waiting for centuries, hiding skulls and building power. The Darkness being free is probably what moved up her plans.” 

“I called the Sheriff while I was waiting on food and told him we wanted to see where the bodies were found. He is supposed to find us a boatman,” Dean says to his brother through the bathroom door. “We gotta meet him at noon.”

**

Just off the Ashley River, near Runnymede Plantation, is a marshy wetlands area where all five of the bodies were found. The guide, a grizzled man who, Dean is convinced, must be in his seventies, reminds him of Rufus right away. 

“You boys don't look like FBI,” he says in greeting. 

Sam chuckles, “We get that a lot.”

“Come on,” the old man says headed down an embankment on the long stretch of abandoned road they parked on. After a bit of a trek through marshy, ankle deep water, the old man stops in front of a small boat and says, “Stay in the boat, and don't put your hand in the water unless you want it bitten off.” 

“Bitten off?” Dean asks seriously. 

“Gators,” the old man says taking his place at the back of the boat, tiller in hand. Sam and Dean exchange a long look before starting to clamber in. “Hey big'en,” the old man says as Sam starts to get in, “you in the middle, boy, so you don't throw the weight off.” Sam chuckles and does as he is told while Dean takes his place at the front of the boat. 

Twenty minutes later, the boat stops and the old man says, “Here we are.”

Even with all the hunting and tracking Bobby taught them, they still cannot distinguish this scum covered section of swamp from any of the rest they have been through. “You're sure?” Dean asks. 

The look the old man gives the hunter is priceless and Dean makes an incredulous face at his brother when Sam smacks him on the arm with a serious, “Dean.”

“The first one,” the old man says, “was found over there,” he points to an area, about fifteen feet away in the water. “The next two were drug up on land over there,” he points to an area where three trees create a little bit of land as they jut out of the swamp, “probably by gators. And the last ones was found right here,” he points to the tree they are currently bobbing beneath, “tangled in the roots. The heads were all found floating in this general area too; except the last one, his was still kinda attached, by a bit of skin I guess, and fell off as they was moving the body.”

“You were here each time?” Sam asks.

The old man nods, “I was. Brought the police out here; otherwise they'd get lost.”

“Who found the bodies?” Dean asks. 

“I found the first one, then some tourists on one of those swamp tours found the next two together, the last one was the one what found the next one and some kids out here doin' God knows found the the last one. Sheriff figured the last one was the one what was doin' the killin', bein' as he's the one what found his cousin and who lived right here close by. Guess not, though,” the man says succinctly. 

“Well,” Dean reasons, “you need a boat to get here. Who do you,” he looks at the old man, “think lured these men out here and killed them?”

The old man laughs, “Boy, don't ask an old man questions you don't want answers to.”

“What does that mean,” Sam asks, curious now, about the old man's tone. 

“If you's FBI, boys, I'm Barack Obama,” the old man smiles. “The witch ain't here, though. And her headless monster, and his black beast, don't have to worry about the gators.”

“How do you know about the witch?” Dean asks, worried now they might have let themselves be lead out here by someone they should not trust. 

“Meara Browne been here since before my grandmother's great-grandmother was a house slave at Runnymede,” he says starting the boat up and heading back the way they came. “She stay in the city, close by where they hung her. That monster, he was her man, got her killed and she came back, took his head. It's an old tale in these parts; just happens, like not so many of them anymore, to be true.”

“How do you know all this,” Sam wants to know, leaning forward a bit, to stare at the old man. 

“Witches are celebrated in parts of this city, there are dozens of them. More than one coven that works around the city, keeping what's here low key and keeping who comes here to see, safe.” He shakes his head now, “Meara, though, won't have no coven. She keeps with the dead, a dangerous thing. The other covens here, the other witches, though, can't go up against her because she got the dead on her side and they are legion strong behind her. You boys, hunters,” he shakes his head, “would be suicide to go against her.”

“Do the police know what's going on here?” Dean asks. 

The old man laughs, “Are they gonna believe a old man?” 

By now, they have made there way back to where they started and, clambering out of the boat, the old man says, “I'm not gonna tell you where she is, but I will say they hung her at the church; you should start there.”

Sam and Dean make there way back to the car in silence. Dean uses melted ice from the cooler to rinse their feet off before they are settled inside. “What the fuck was that?” Sam asks turning to his brother as he starts the engine. 

“Olle said he'd fly down if we needed help,” Dean says starting to back the long distance to where the road turned, not enough room to turn the big car where they were. 

Sam shakes his head, still thinking Olle is better off where he is until Sam can figure out why he feels so uneasy around him. “We can do this on our own.”

“We don't have to, though, Sam; that's the thing,” Dean says spinning Baby out onto the main road and heading back into the the city. 

“Let's just see what we find,” Sam says reaching over to turn on the radio. Dean knows, if his brother opts for music instead of conversation, the conversation is over.


	36. Chapter 36

“How do we always seems to get so far in over our heads Sammy?” Dean asks as they walk through the historic district of Charleston, headed for the City Market. 

“I don't know Dean,” Sam says honestly. “Crazy just always seems to find us.”

As they make there way through the busy market, getting ready to close at six, they continue talking and Sam finally realizes something, “Dean, the old man, he said she was hung near a church, but that could mean anywhere. The city hung the pirate Stede Bonnet south of here, right on the water.”

“Your nerdyness knows no bounds Sammy,” Dean smiles. “So, do you think that's where they would have hung her?”

Sam shrugs, “I don't know Dean. There isn't even a record, not exactly, of her hanging. Just that article I found and it wasn't more than an obituary.”

“They couldn't have hung her, not really,” Dean says, “if she's still up and kicking.”

There meandering conversation has seen them through the walk south to White Point Gardens. Finding nothing there, though, they make their way north again, finding dinner at Slightly North of Broad before heading back to Baby and their motel. 

**

Olle, much to Sam's surprise and Dean's relief, is waiting for them when they get back to the hotel. “Hey,” the big man says leaned against their door. 

“Olle man,” Dean comes up to give the man his hand and a half hug pat on the back, “things have taken a turn. I'm glad you're here.”

“I couldn't sleep,” the immortal shrugs. “I have to go to a funeral in Georgia day after tomorrow. I figured, since I had time to kill, might as well see what you were up to.” David Lassiter had asked him to come to the shifter/prostitute's funeral as a sign of Olle's willingness to see reason when it came to hunting. Olle is pretty sure it is just so the shifter's family doesn't try to hunt him down. Apparently, it had taken a while to track them down, they didn't even know she was in Chicago, but they were ready enough to avenge her when they found out a hunter brought her body back. 

“Come on in,” Dean says, Sam following behind them slowly. “Have you eaten?” the oldest Winchester wonders, ever the mother-hen. 

Olle chuckles, “Yeah. I've been here since about three. I walked through the city and ate at High Cotton.” Olle has a backpack, a medium sized, wheeled, black suitcase, and his leather satchel as well as a white canvas bag with him. When they get inside the room, the shopping bag, it turns out, has beer and whiskey and a three pound bag of fresh pralines inside. 

Dean chucks the beer in the fridge, and grabs three cold ones, while Olle pulls off his leather jacket and a green sweater before he drops in a chair. “Who died?” Sam asks dropping on his bed and taking the beer Dean offers. 

“One of the SEALS who pulled me out of Afghanistan lived in Georgia,” is all Olle says, cracking his own beer as Dean drops across from him. “I looked into that witch of yours,” the immortal goes on. “Have you checked out the church yet?”

“What church?” Sam asks. 

Olle smiles, blazing hot, as he turns up his beer, and Sam feels his face heat up, “The oldest church in the south, Old Saint Andrew's. If this witch is making headless horsemen, there are over a thousand graves at the church. Most of them slaves so they'd be angry, powerful, anyway. The church is right off Ashley River Road, just down the river, through the marshland, to the south of where the bodies were found according to GPS.”

“How are we gonna kill her?” Dean asks the room. “If she has an army of these things, our river guide today told us she had at least one who was doing her killing for her.”

Sam is quiet, nursing his beer, watching his brother and Olle. Dean seems to trust him, seems to think he is trustworthy, and they get along. Dean knows Olle is keeping secrets, has mentioned it to Sam more than once, but he still treats him like a member of the team; a new member, but still. The big man stands up to get them all another round and he stretches then, fingertips scrubbing the ten foot ceiling as his dark green t-shirt pulls out of his jeans to reveal a strip of hairy belly that Sam just can't seem to take his eyes off of. 

It hits him then, like a brick to the face, he is attracted to Olle. He stands up, paniced, wanting to go to the bathroom and freak out alone, but he picked the worst time to move because he runs right into Olle's huge, well muscled body as the man tries to hand him another beer. With mumbled apologies, he slides around the giant and into the bathroom, slumping against the closed door to stare at himself in the mirror in shock. “Fuck,” he says to himself repeatedly before going over to actually use the toilet before washing his hands. Running wet hands across his face and through his hair, he stares hard at himself in the mirror, “Fuck,” he says one last time before a few deep breaths get the door open. 

“What have we decided?” he asks the room as he goes back out; Dean and Olle sitting at the table playing poker for pralines; how long was he in there?

“We're gonna head to the church as soon as I win this round,” Dean says as he grabs a handful of his bank and throws them in his mouth. 

Olle grins, “I don't think you're gonna win this one.” Turning to Sam, grin making the young hunter blush even harder now that he has figured himself out, Olle says, “Depending on what we find, I guess we'll go from there. Ha!” he exclaims throwing his cards down, ace high full house, and racking in his winnings. 

**

Picking through the cemetery, each man carrying a flashlight and shovel, in addition to salt, lighter fluid, and matches, they all stop at a grave marked Brown or Browne and start to dig. The older graves are easy enough to get into, but the introduction of burial vaults in the 1880's make newer graves more of a chore. After working their way through a grave each, Olle disappears for almost an hour. When he shows up again, he is driving a backhoe. The brothers are relieved, and let their friend get to work. Six graves in, each a Browne and going back to the 1790's, they move on to the fathers of each of the dead victims. Like all the others, these graves contain only burnt bones and ash; skulls decidedly missing. 

“Fuck!” Olle swears crawling out of the last grave. “She has been at this a while.” Dean goes behind him with the back hoe and starts filling in the grave while Olle goes to help Sam smooth the cut up sod over the last two. There is actually a lot of effort that has to go into not getting caught at this. 

“Why is she only taking the men?” Sam wonders. 

“Well,” Olle reasons out as he goes over to smooth the grave Dean just finished, “her husband, lover, whoever, he sold her out; got her hung. She wants to obliterate his line. Patriarchy, succession, and the power of continuing your last name is all important to a lot of people. You may not believe it, but a lot of women are still being raised down here to firmly believe their value as a wife and mother should be held in higher esteem than whatever else they want to be or do and their value to their husband is to give him children, sons, to keep his name going. It's seen as part of that whole 'be fruitful and multiply' thing.”

“That's bullshit,” Dean says as he gets out of the CAT. 

Olle snorts, “Yeah, but that doesn't mean people don't believe it. From a genetic stand point it's a load of crap too. Lineage is purest when traced from mother to daughter. For starters, she knows that kid came out of her body but can he be sure he's the one who put it there?”

Dean laughs at that but Sam just smiles and shakes his head. “So,” Sam comes to lean on the backhoe, “we know she's been doing this since at least the 1790's.”

“Probably before then,” Dean chimes in. 

“But,” Sam continues, “where is she and why has she been doing it? And, why aren't there hundreds of headless horsemen running rampant through Charleston?”

“And what are we gonna do about her when we find her?” Dean worries. 

“You two stay the fuck away from her and I kill her,” Olle says before he gets in the CAT and takes it back wherever he found it. 

When he gets back to the car, Sam and Dean are waiting on him; Sam leaned against his door while Dean rummages in the trunk. “You're not expendable, you know,” Sam says quietly when Olle comes up to pull the back door open. “Just because you keep coming back doesn't mean we should send you out there like a pig to slaughter.”

Olle smiles, almost sadly, and acts like he wants to reach out to Sam, but stops himself. With a shake of his head, he grins, “Awe Sammy, it's not a slaughter when I volunteer; it's suicide.” He gets in the back without another word.


	37. Chapter 37

Back at the motel, Sam goes out to try to gather everything they need for Bobby's patented witch killing spell while Dean and Olle comb through maps and genealogy and lore trying to find Meara's skull hiding spot. Sitting at the table, beer in hand, Dean looks up from his laptop to ask, “Do you really have to go to a funeral?”

Olle nods, a smile on his face, as he turns up his own bottle, “Those demons in Idaho, there was a girl. I sent her to some people and they finally found her family.” Olle shakes his head, “She was taken off the streets of Chicago as a whore, couldn't a been more than eighteen. Her family hadn't even reported her missing. Don't know what kinda people they are, but I'm taking her home.”

“You need us to go with you?” Dean asks seriously. 

Olle shakes his head, reaching for the unopened whiskey in the middle of the table, “This was my doing. I'll do it alone.”

“You don't have to,” Dean says. 

Olle smiles, pouring three fingers of amber into a clear plastic cup, “I want to. I think about Kalle, what it must have been like for him when they knocked on his door and told him I was dead. I remember the look on his face the first time he saw me when I got home again,” Olle drains his cup in one go and Dean refills it. “I asked his father what he was like; morbid curiosity.” Olle shakes his head and takes a smaller drink this time, “He told me what Kalle went through. Kalle became my brother when I was eight and he was eighteen; his father beat him senseless and kicked him out when he found out he was gay. Dad picked him up on the street almost a year later and brought him home so he would have a safe place to sleep and food to eat without hustling for it. What I put him through,” Olle shakes his head, “I don't know how to get far enough away from him to keep him safe now. I don't know how to do that to him again.”

Dean doesn't say anything, he just gets his own glass. When the bottle is empty and all the beer is gone, and they think they may have found the witch, Olle grabs a pillow off of Dean's bed and slides down into the floor while Dean sprawls across the bed. The last thing either one of them remember is Dean laughing, “I'd let you sleep with me but I'm already too big for the bed.”

**

Sam slams the door angrily when he drags himself through it at just after dawn, carrying everything for the spell; chicken feet included. He had expected to find them both asleep, Olle probably laid out on his bed, but he was pissed to find all the empty bottles and hear Dean's loud, obviously drunk, snore. Both men jerk awake, Olle sits up so fast he hits his head on the edge of the headboard and groans in pain. Sam is immediately apologetic when he sees the man's head start to bleed.

“Fuck!” the hunter exclaims dropping everything in his arms on the table and going over to pull Olle up on the side of Dean's bed. “Let me see,” he says pulling Olle's hand away to get a closer look. 

“Jesus Winchester,” the doctor swears. “I know I said Meara could kill me but I wasn't giving you cart blanch,” Olle laughs. 

“You're not hung over?” Sam asks, embarrassed smile, one dimple, crossing his face. 

“I told you, I don't get hung over,” Olle says touching his forehead and pulling back to look at the blood, “but thanks, now I've got the headache. How bad is it?”

The blood was a steady trickle out of his scalp and there was a definite knot forming. Sam feels so, so bad now about venting his anger. “Just let me get a washcloth and try to stop the bleeding,” he says going over to wet a rag at the sink, thinking they will need to get more clean towels since they all had to shower after grave digging last night. “I'm really, really sorry,” he says wringing the rag nearly dry and folding it over to press at Olle's head. 

With a hiss and a gentle smile, Olle reaches up, hand covering Sam's to take the rag, and Sam pulls away slowly, “Thanks Sammy.” 

With a nod the other hunter goes over to the table and starts organizing the ingredients for the spell. “I got everything we need,” he says. “This has worked in the past, on a pretty strong witch. We can at least try it on Meara; Spencer wasn't a necromancer, but,” he shrugs. 

“Chicken feet,” Olle laughs recognizing the spell he gave Bobby years ago. He is trying to defuse some of the tension, Sam was talking really fast and not making eye contact. Olle didn't want him to feel bad about what happened; it was a simple accident. 

Sam stops what he is doing and takes a deep, calming breath before giving Olle a blinding smile, “Yeah, Bobby.”

Olle nods knowingly and Dean, sitting up on the side of the bed, groans, “Are you girls finished yet? I need coffee.” He leavers himself up and disappears into the bathroom. 

**

At The Early Bird Diner, just down the street, Dean soaks up his coffee like he wishes it came in an IV. Sam looks hard at his brother and snarks, “Did you guys actually find anything before you decided to drink all the alcohol?”

“Pft,” Dean tries, but his head really hurts, Olle is too damn big to drink with; he can keep up with Dean and the hunter's competitive streak rears its ugly head. 

Olle laughs, taking a long drink form his coffee and motioning for the waitress to bring them another round, “We did,” he says as she fills his cup. Nodding his thanks, Olle goes on as she walks away, “I'm pretty sure we found her.”

“Great,” Sam says. “Where?”

Olle nods at the waitress again as she sits their food down, “Thank you Marin.” The girl nods with a smile, crystal blue eyes shining, before walking away. 

“Well,” Sam waits. 

“Her Sammy,” Dean says looking at the waitress. “Marin, Meara, the waitress.”

“Our waitress is a four hundred year old Irish Necromancer?” he just doesn't believe it. 

“Eat,” Olle says indicating Sam's omelet as he starts on his own chicken and waffles while Dean digs into his breakfast burger. “We can kill her after, this place is supposed to be good.”

“Why do you think it is her?” Sam wants to know as he cuts into his food. 

“The name fits, she is a Brown, plus,” Olle says cutting another bit, his food is really good, “the witch at the slave market told me.”

“What?” Dean and Sam say at once. 

“I told you I got here early yesterday,” Olle says reasonably. “I walked through the market. You know it use to be a slave auction, right? The place is haunted to beat all Hell. There is a whole coven who keeps them all in check. I talked to their high priestess.”

“How do you know all these witches?” Sam asks. 

“I don't, didn't,” Olle says with a smile. “I'm a people person. I have power because my mother has power and a lot of them can sense that; it attracts them to me. They want to know if I'm a threat, so they generally come asking.” 

“So you're a witch?” Dean asks. 

Olle shakes his head, talking with his mouth full, “Yes and no.” Swallowing, he goes on, “I have a natural talent, a natural power, apparently. When I need to use magick, I can and it always turns out exactly like I want it to; that's why Cas is still here. But I don't know if it's because of my mother or the curse or a little bit of both,” Olle says truthfully. 

“Won't Marin,” Sam gestures at their waitress, “sense whatever this is, then? It could put her on guard.”

Olle shakes his head, “I took your pen this morning, remember?” He had grabbed Sam's pen while the hunter was packing his laptop away. Pulling his sleeve up, Olle shows them a glyph drawn just under his thumb on his right wrist. 

“That's an Enochian binding rune,” Sam says. 

“I used it to hide from a coven once in Iceland and it should make me seem just as boring as any other person.”

“Iceland?” Dean asks. 

Olle chuckles, pulling his sleeve back down, “I went to hike the volcano earlier this year and I ran into a coven doing a Spring Solstice sacrifice.” He should tell them the whole story; maybe once he can tell them the whole truth.


	38. Chapter 38

When they finish eating, Olle pays for their meal, tipping the girl well, before they make there way back to the car; Olle left his card on the table on purpose. As he is opening the door to get in, he hears Marin, “Hey, wait, excuse me, hey!”

Olle turns, smiling, cuffs hidden in his hand, “Yes?”

“You forgot your card,” she reaches out and Olle goes for the card while, simultaneously, snapping the cuffs on her and turning her into the hood of the car to get her other hand. 

“Hey,” she exclaims and, when she realizes she cannot use magick to free herself she starts to really struggle. 

As Olle maneuvers her into the back of the Impala, Sam and Dean wrangle the manager by pulling their FBI badges. “Meara,” Olle says sitting with her as the brothers talk with the manager and lead him back inside, “what the fuck are you doing? Killing them instead of waiting for them to die, bad move.”

“We don't have much time left,” she says. “I thought I'd get ahead while I still could,” she laughs. 

“Do you know who they are?” Olle tilts his head at the brothers. “Sam and Dean Winchester.” She does seems to get more still at that. “They want to kill you. Necromancy, Meara,” Olle shakes his head, “you should know better.”

“I wasn't a necromancer,” she says turning her face up at him as Sam and Dean slide back into the car. “It was hedgery and midwifery. But, my man's sister died in childbed, the boy too, and she began to haunt us; blaming me for their deaths.”

“And you turned to necromancy to force her away?” Dean asks. 

“You could have salted and burned the body,” Sam says seriously. 

“He listened to her,” she says angrily, looking between them. “He called me witch and they hung me! He,” her voice breaks on a sob, “he killed our baby! She was just,” she can't stop crying, and suddenly Olle feels a wave of power, from the pain, wash over him. He sees now, everything she is remembering. “just three months old! No one would feed the child of a witch and he smothered her in her crib because she wouldn't stop crying!” Olle is sick with it, he can't move watching her, too weak to do anything but exist as a lost soul gathering power around her; her body broken to the point her magick is all that is keeping it alive. “He married and had another child, a boy, within the year,” she snarls. “My daughter was wrapped in a sheet and left for the alligators because he didn't care and the pastor wouldn't bury her on hallowed ground,” she wails, doubled over in the seat now, crying uncontrollably while the three men just sit there in shock. 

Olle has seen, and done, some awful things but this disgusts him and he has to suppress the urge to get out and vomit up his breakfast. He thinks about Alistair and Cordelia and so many others; he knows he cannot kill this woman, cannot let Sam and Dean kill this woman. “Are you merely punishing them or are you amassing power?” Olle asks after enough time has past she has exhausted herself and lays, chest heaving, on her side, head nearly in his lap. 

“We can't trust anything she says,” Dean says confidently, turning to look down at her; his own face ashen. 

“How many are left?” Sam asks then, cutting into the argument Olle was about to have with Dean. “How many more men have to die so that your husband's name is forgotten?”

“Two,” she says leveraging herself back up in the seat. 

“Sammy,” Dean turns to his brother. 

Sam ignores him, “You let them all go. Every one of them except him. You let their souls go.”

“I'm as good as dead if I do that,” she says shaking her head. “I won't do that until he sees what I have done to him and he knows why! I want him to hear our daughter's cries for the rest of eternity. When I know that is how he will be punished, I will gladly let you kill me.”

“We may be able to accomplish that,” Olle says. 

**

After a long, adamant, argument with Sam and Dean, Olle has convinced them to go collect all of Meara's stolen heads while he takes her back to her home, where she keeps her husband's head. His logic was sound; when the spirits come for her, they will try to go through whomever is with her. He tells them he intends to ward her apartment and summon her husband so he can see what she has done. She is argumentative, wanting the last two Brown's extinguished from existence, but Olle is not giving her a choice in the matter. 

Dropped at her apartment, Olle goes inside with her and, once alone, he turns to her, “I know you don't like this,” he says starting to lay salt lines while she sits, still cuffed, on a dining chair. “And I know you think I'm just going to kill you when this is all over. I won't.”

“Pft, like you care. You're a hunter,” she says like that is all she needs to know. 

Olle laughs, going over to the sink to scrub the glyph off his wrist. “You've surrounded yourself with the dead Meara; tell me you can't feel this.” 

As the last of the ink rinses away, she gets up and moves toward him curiously. “What are you?”

Olle laughs, “Stronger witches, older witches; older beings, call me The Ancestor.” 

She takes in a sharp breath and backs as far away from him as possible. “You're not supposed to be real,” she says quietly. “But, but there is nothing in there,” she says looking at him hard, head tilted to the side, confused. Olle laughs, necromancers, the really strong ones, can see a person's true aura, which is really just a dimmed down version of their soul. They can tell how attached to a body it is, how easy it would be to manipulate, trap, and enslave the soul once the body is dead. “It's like looking into the abyss,” she says continuing to stare at him. “I can almost see,” she stops, turns away in pain. 

“Don't look too deep Meara,” Olle warns. “The human mind can conceptualize a lot, but even I have trouble staring through me and into what's out there.”

“Why haven't you killed me?” she wonders going back to her chair and Olle back to his warding. 

“Tell me, how did you learn about me?” Olle asks. 

“The man without a soul who can't die?” she laughs. “There are volumes written about you in necromancy lore.” Olle figured as much and shrugs, smiling at her. “You're the only thing anyone has ever seen without a soul that isn't, somehow, so far removed from anything but the most base instincts and desires that it is almost evil.” She gets up then, to walk through the apartment with him, oblivious now to her cuffed hands, “You look and feel like a man,” she muses. “But, when you wanted me to see, I couldn't see anything else. Marie Laveau told me you were real. She said you were a legend when she was born and an angel showed you to her.” The witch laughs, “I thought she was drunk!”

Olle laughs then too, “She probably was.” Finished with the warding, he turns to her seriously; truth telling time and he hates it, “I'm telling you this, Meara, because you need to know that all this warding will not protect you from them. They will barrel at you and, as many of them as there are, crash through it like spun sugar. This,” he gestures around, “is to keep them from leveling the building. You are going to die. Before you do, though, I want you to give me the names, those two men left, and I need you to know his legacy, his name, ends with them.”

She is quiet now, letting Olle lead her to the couch and remove her cuffs. “Brothers Sean and Andrew Brown,” she says finally. “They are young, 20 and 24, but their parents are both gone. Father died in Afghanistan and mother died in a car accident.”

When she has given Olle all he needs to find them, he smiles a sad smile, “I'm going to hate doing this.”

She smiles sadly, “I'll never know if you don't.”

“But I will,” Olle says. “What your man did, it infected the whole line of them and they are tainted. Where is his head?”

She gets up, going to a wooden box in the bottom of her closet, “Here.”

Olle can see the bright blue light of his soul swirling around inside his skull, it is almost beautiful. He pulls out his phone and calls Crowley. “I'm in Charleston and I need you,” Olle says when the demon picks up the phone.


	39. Chapter 39

There is a knock on the front door and the Demon King's voice from the other side, “Olle,” he knocks again, “are you going to let me in?” Sitting the head on the dining table, Olle opens the door and smudges the salt line enough for Crowley to step over it, “I'm not your personal maid service, what do you want?”

“What is that?” Meara asks looking at the demon. 

“Crowley, King of Hell,” he answers, “who are you?”

“Meara,” Olle answers. “She's a necromancer so mind your manners.”

The demon backs up, hands raised, “I'll be good. What do you want Olle?” he looks at him seriously. “Since September, you've caused nothing but chaos in Hell. I'm busy.”

“Yeah Crowley, that was my fault,” Olle snarks. “I want you to take this,” he hands the demon the skull. 

“You want me to make a demon?” he is confused after Olle just demanding he kill demons. 

“I want you to lock him away somewhere where he hears nothing but his three month old daughter's cries of hunger, where he knows, unequivocally, that his line, his name, is forever extinguished from the face of Creation. And I want him to be suffocated and fed to alligators, hourly,” Olle says succinctly. “From now until the end of all things.”

“So punish, don't turn,” Crowley says with a nod. 

“He doesn't deserve the opportunity,” Olle says. 

Crowley sticks his finger in the blue light, swirling it around like a cocktail, “He was a stupid, hateful bastard wasn't he.” Looking up, Crowley says, “Alright, anything else?”

“Yeah, don't hang around, Sam and Dean are here,” Olle says going over and opening the door. 

“Why do I let you order me about?” he muses with a smile, once he is on the opposite side of the salt. 

“Because I'll feed you to the Balrog before giving you to your brothers,” Olle says with a grin. 

“Oh yeah, right,” Crowley acknowledges as fact before he is gone. 

“That was not a demon,” Meara says pointing at the door. 

“He use to be an angel,” Olle says going over to sit on the couch. 

“Am I really about to die?” she asks sitting beside him. 

“I'm afraid so,” Olle says. 

“Where am I going to go?” she wonders looking up at him. 

Olle shakes his head, “You murdered five people. Where do you think you're going to go?”

“Hell,” she says sadly. “You should have let him stay, he could have taken me with him.”

Olle smiles, taking her hand; so small in his huge grip, “Where do you want to go?”

She starts to cry again, “I want to see my daughter again. I want to see my mother. I want an end to all this terrible pain I've lived with for so long.” 

“Then I'm pretty sure that is where you're going to end up,” Olle says with a gentle squeeze. “I've never known God to deny peace to those who need it. He loves us all, even me, and that is astonishing.” Olle's phone beeps then, a text from Dean telling him they are about to set a match to her collection. 

“I'm frightened,” she says quietly as she curls into Olle's large frame. 

The big man holds her close and says quietly, “Don't be.”

When they come, it is quick and quiet, a force blasting through the warding, through her. Olle lays her still form down on the couch and turns to Thanatos, “You came yourself,” Olle says. “Why?”

“Dean and Sam Winchester are here somewhere,” he says. “And you haven't revealed yourself to someone in almost five thousand years.”

“I had pralines at the motel,” Olle says with a smile. “If I'd known you were coming,” he shrugs. 

Death shrugs as well, taking a seat in the armchair across from Olle, “The Winchesters think I'm dead, don't they?”

Olle smiles, “Of course they do. What makes you think Dean isn't so convinced of his own superiority that he truly believes he can kill Death. Come on Thane,” Olle chuckles. 

“You're not going to tell them otherwise, are you?” he asks. 

“Hadn't planed on it,” Olle responds. 

“Good,” he says standing. “I'll be going.”

“So, you don't know anything? Don't remember anything I could use?” Olle asks. 

“I didn't exist until eons after the beginning,” the man says, “and you know it.”

“But you're out there, right now, cleaning up her messes,” Olle says. “I'm stuck here with paranoid hunters and shell shocked angels. I need anything you can give me Thane, please,” Olle says sitting forward. 

“All I know is, she is destroying souls, consuming power, growing. Whatever He did to put her away, you're going to have to find out, soon. I can't do my job when she is unmaking all the souls.” He moves to the door, “Send your hunters to Texas, she has been very busy there lately.” 

With that, he is gone. Olle sighs and, after covering Meara with a blanket, he takes his time cleaning all evidence of himself and the warding out of the apartment. Tucking her in and turning the TV on, whoever finds her will think she just died in her sleep. 

When Sam and Dean pull up to pick him up, they are quiet; Olle doesn't feel like talking either.

**

Back at the motel, Olle showers and grabs his gear, “I've got a plane to catch guys,” he says. 

“What time?” Dean asks, “I'll take you to the airport.”

Before Olle can answer, his phone beeps, “I got an Uber,” he says opening the door. “I'll see you guys at home in a week or so,” Olle says. 

“Thanks man,” Dean says going over and taking his hand. “If you need anything,” Dean leaves it at that, but Olle nods in understanding. 

“Sam,” Olle says waving a salute from the door. 

Sam comes over and shakes his hand, “I'll see you later,” the hunter says trying to judge how long is too long to hold the big man's hand. He wishes Olle had told him about the demon in Idaho and the dead girl, but he had to hear it from Dean while they were making a pile of skulls. 

**

Once Olle is gone, the boys grab take away Thai food and eat in their room while getting ready to head home tomorrow. Dean, feeling left out of this hunt despite all the grave digging and skull burning, starts to search for a job between them and home. After about an hour, he looks up at Sam, “Hey Sammy, I think I found something.”

“What Dean?” his brother asks looking up from his book. He had been trying to read A Song of Ice and Fire for a while now, but his books were going missing; or he thought they were, but they kept showing back up where he left them. 

“North Carolina, people dying of smoke inhalation without fire,” he sounds excited. 

As much as Sam just wants to go home and sleep in his own bed, where he can think about whatever this is with Olle and try to quash it, he doesn't want to disappoint his brother so he says, “Okay Dean, we can check it out if you want.”


	40. Chapter 40

Two days after he leaves, Olle returns to Charleston. He hasn't spoken to Sam or Dean, figures they are probably back at the Bunker already. This promise he made to Meara has been weighing on him. Killing people in cold blood has never been something he is okay with. This, though, is revenge, plain and simple, and he told her he would take up her mantle. Only two names left. He should have let her take them before they destroyed the skulls. 

Beth agreed with him, told him it was not the right thing to do, but justice and fairness and righteousness were all such small words compared to the pain of a love betrayed, the agony of a child killed. In the grand scheme of things, he kept asking himself, would the weight of two more really make a difference? She offered to do it for him and, truth be told, he almost let her. In the end, though, it was his promise and, even if she was, technically, him, he would have felt like he broke that promise.

Finding these young men was easier than he wanted it to be. Sean was going to a technical college in the city, trying to become a welder, and his brother Andrew, a nurse, worked in A&E at the local hospital. Neither one of them were bad men, which made this that much worse. He had been wracking his brain trying to think of a way to keep his promise without killing them, but, seriously, how do you get two total strangers to have a vasectomy? There were plenty of spell he could use to make them sterile, but most of them involved some form of grotesque physical deformity to go alone with it; and he can't think of a single man, himself included, who would think that was preferable to death. 

Three days after getting back to Charleston, Olle is sitting in his rental car outside the brother's home and his phone rings. “Hey Sam,” Olle was almost half asleep, but he is glad to hear from him; figures they are wondering where the Hell he is. 

“Hey Olle.” Sam sounds thoughtful, nervous even.

“W'a'sup?” Olle wants to know, sitting up straighter in the car and reaching forward to turn off the low playing radio. 

“Hey Olle man, we caught a case in North Carolina and I thought your Wikipedia page said you did a stint at Duke?” Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck just runs through the big man's head over and over; how the fuck did this happen?

“Yeah Sam,” he is careful, mind racing but trying to stay calm and steady; like nothing is wrong, “for a couple months before my Mom died. Why?” 

“Just wondering if you knew the area, north of RDU, place called Henderson?” Sam sounds too casual. 

Goddammit! 

“Yeah man, not really,” he realizes he paused, he fucking paused, shit! “I'm more familiar with Charlotte to be honest; it's the other side of the state but it's an awesome city!” It sounds lame, even to his own ears. 

“Okay. I guess it doesn't matter, though, I'm in a cemetery now waiting on Dean to finish this and then we'll be on our way back to the bunker. Should be outta here in the morning.” There is a long pause and Olle thinks Sam is going to hang up, but he goes on again, “Did you know that you can have your ashes put in an urn and turned into a tree? I'm sitting here by this marker that says these people put their daughter's ashes in an urn so she could be a maple tree. She was young, just a few months older than me. Julia, I wonder how she died.” 

Olle's vision is whiting out, his ears ringing as Sam's voice saying his name seems to echo threw him, and he is just, suddenly, so overwhelmingly tired of everything; especially of lying. He is angry, too, though, at fate or God or whatever is doing this like this. “What have you been doing there Sam?” 

“I found a notebook inside a suitcase at Goodwill, Olle, while I was searching for a cursed object. You've been lying to us!” Sam is accusatory but not angry.

“It's none of your business Winchester!” Olle unleashes his anger. “It makes no difference who she was, or how you found her! Who I am, besides what you already know, is of no relevance and I don't feel the need to goad you into telling me your life's story.” Anger spent, now, the exhaustion takes over and Olle sighs, “Why did you call me Sam?”

“Who was she? I...she...why did she do that?” Sam asks sadly.

“Why do you care so much when no one else did?” Christ, he had no idea he was still that angry; he needs to talk to Beth. “Just get back in one piece Sam and I'll try to figure out what I can tell you, okay?” Olle hangs up before Sam can say anything. 

**

A quick drive through the city leads him back to the City Market and, after a bit of searching, the priestess who was kind enough to give him Meara's whereabouts the previous week. She looks hard at him, like she is angry, and asks, “What do you want?”

Olle has no time to play nice, he is freaking out and he just needs to get this done and head home, “Don't act like you didn't send me straight for her wanting what happened to happen.” He shoves a piece of paper at her, “I need these, now.”

Looking at the list she huffs, “Love magick? Why should I help you?” 

The woman turns away like she won't help him and Olle reaches out, grip hard on her upper arm as he turns her back to face him. “Don't ever forget what I am little girl,” his voice is like ice. “I let you keep this coven and trap these souls here for profit. Make no mistake, you are alive right now because I see fit to keep it so.”

The woman, more frightened now that she has ever been of anything, nods. Another woman, who looks about as old as Olle does, comes over now. “Grandma, are you okay?” she asks with a hint of power in her voice. 

Olle lets the older woman go and stares hard at her before she responds, voice only slightly unsteady, “I'm fine child. Take this,” she reaches out the list, “and bring me these things.”

An hour later, Olle is back outside the Brown house with everything he needs to keep his promise and still be headed home within the hour; conscience clear. A flash of his FBI badge and the excuse of talking about their dead family members, gets him in the house. After that, it is just a matter of asking to use the bathroom and doing a little rummaging to find DNA from both brothers. 

Olle preforms the spell on the trunk of his rental car in temporary parking at the airport. The curse is a simple one; a few choice herbs, some DNA, and a lot of intent ensures both brothers will never father a male heir. Olle moves through the airport, checking his bag of weapons, headed back to Kansas City, thoughts cloudy and full. 

What is coming, how it is going to play out, it frightens him. What will the brothers do when they find out the whole truth? Is Lucifer ready to face them? To face himself? How will they all react? What will happen to him and Beth? Will Kevin and Linda be okay? How is he going to sit down and tell them everything? Can he find the words? Will he stay sane? What is Sam, what are they, going to accuse him of if he doesn't admit the truth right away? 

He can't stomach the idea of four hours back to Lebanon on his bike, not at midnight, so he goes home instead. Curled in his bed with Beth and Balthazar, it all seems a little less scary. Maybe it won't be that bad, he thinks, pulling the angel to him as Balthazar does the same to Beth.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting to realize I don't care if anyone reads this, any of this. I've put it, and myself, out there and that is good enough. I'm still very embarrassed by the idea of anyone reading this; I almost wish I didn't know how many of you were looking.


End file.
